Life
11 Apps To Help You Sleep Better & Actually Get A Solid Rest
Remember when the iPhones first came out and their slogan was "There's an app for that"? Well it was a pretty genius marketing campaign, because there really is an app for everything. Want a picture hung straight? There's an app for that. Want to track your fitness goals? There's an app for that. Want a better night's sleep? There's an app for that, too.
That's right, you can catch more Z's thanks to your smartphone with apps that help you sleep better. These are probably some of the best apps on the market, since the benefits of a good night's sleep definitely outweigh the benefits of beating Candy Crush (although that's really a tough call.)
Most people already bookend their sleep cycles with phone use — if you use your phone as your alarm clock, you have to set it before bed and then turn the damn thing off in the morning. But your phone can do a lot more than simply startle you awake in the morning. It can soothe you to sleep, track your snooze and help you to understand your slumber. With these apps, you can work your way to a better rest, no sheep counting required.
1Sleep Genius
Sleep Genius ($4.99) pretty much does everything you want a sleep app to do. Using scientific and neurological research and algorithms, this app promises to give you a better night's sleep, and has also been recognized by NASA. So it's gotta be good.
2Sleep Pillow Sounds
If you can't take silence at sleepytime, Sleep Pillow Sounds ($1.99) has a full library of white noise that will help you relax, including everything from rain to jungle cave birds to a washing machine.
3Relax & Sleep Well
Relax & Sleep Well (Free) is a self-hypnosis sleep app that will take you through guided meditations to help you overcome your insomnia and fell less anxious.
4Proactive Sleep Alarm Clock
Proactive Sleep (Free) is more than just an alarm clock — it also monitors your body movement throughout the night to track your sleep, and the alarm goes off within a 30-minute window based on your lightest sleep phase. It also offers a sleep diary feature, since journaling is another way to help insomniacs get more sleep.
5Yoga For Insomnia
There's nothing more frustrating than lying in bed and not being able to doze off. Well, the answer might be to get out of bed. Try the poses on Yoga For Insomnia ($2.99) to stretch yourself to sleep.
6SleepTime+
SleepTime+ ($1.99) doubles as an alarm clock and a sleep tracker. But what makes this app extra great is that it also provides a sleep history feature. By saving all of your process to the cloud, you can look back on your sleep patterns to see how your cycles are changing and, hopefully, improving.
7Relax Melodies
Relax Melodies (Free) provides you with soothing sounds to whisk you off to dream land. It lets you mix their sounds to create your own unique combinations, and you can try something different every night.
8Long Deep Breathing
One of the best ways to trick your body into sleep mode is to change your breath. Long Deep Breathing ($0.99) teaches you how to do just that, which helps relax the body and beat insomnia.
9Sleepio
Go back to school with Sleepio (Free) — an app that teaches you different techniques for falling asleep. The Prof, your animated personal professor, gives you lessons on CBT sleep therapy, which looks at both the mental and behavioral aspects of insomnia, and works with your to achieve better sleeping habits.
10Sleepmaker Rain
Do you sleep better during a thunder storm or drizzly night? Well Sleepmaker Rain (Free) uses actual recordings of rain to lull you into sleep, even on the clearest of nights.
11SleepBot
SleepBot (Free) is an acclaimed sleep tracker and alarm clock app. It provides you with information and statistics about your sleep, has ambient noise options for falling asleep, and has an alarm clock that wakes you during your lightest sleep phase, making it much easier to get out of bed in the morning.
