Sleep plays a vital role in our everyday health and wellbeing, but for many, it doesn’t come easily. There are numerous factors that cause plenty of us to struggle to sleep, from stress and anxiety, to an unhealthy lifestyle or a poor routine. As we get older, even more nuisances are added to this list, including aches, pains and insomnia, to name a few.
Thankfully, there are a number of apps available that are completely focused on helping us to get some quality sleep. These apps are designed to cater to the modern day needs of the rising number of people failing to get a good amount of quality sleep each night.
Here you will find 10 highly recommended sleep apps, each with its own unique offering, that are well-known for aiding the transition from sleepless nights to deep and peaceful slumbers.
1. Pzizz
Pzizz is proving very popular with its many users, including world-famous author, J.K Rowling! The app combines a variety of sounds, called dreamscapes, which work to relax your mind and body, to send you off to sleep and to keep you asleep all the way through the night. These dreamscapes are said to be optimised for each part of the sleep cycle.
There’s also another area of the Pzizz app, known as focuscapes, which consists of a combination of sounds that are said to help you focus and boost productivity.
2. Sleepo
Sleepo is another sleep app that provides a variety of sounds designed to help send you off to sleep. From rain sounds to city sounds and even instrumental tunes, you can pick sounds from the collection that you personally find soothing. There’s also a collection of sounds designed to help you meditate or concentrate, so you can make use of Sleepo throughout the day if you like.
What’s more, this particular app can work without an internet connection, so you can make good use of it no matter where you are.
3. Calm
One of the best ways to ensure a gentle and easy drifting off to sleep is to wind down ahead of bedtime. A short mindfulness or meditation session is a great way to do this, and this third sleep app, Calm, can certainly help you do just that.
With this app, you’ll have access to hundreds of different programmes of varying lengths. Some are designed to boost self-esteem, some are to help you let go of stress and others are to promote a deep and healthy sleeping pattern. It’s completely free to download and could be the perfect solution to your sleeping problems.
4. Pillow
Pillow allows you to track your sleep so that you can learn more about your own natural way of sleeping. The app can also detect when you’re in your lightest stage of rest and the optimum time for you to wake, which it will help you to do with a gentle alarm.
With pillow, you are also able to take naps of varying levels, including power naps and recovery naps. Again, the app will find the best time and the best way to wake you from these naps, so that you feel revitalised and ready to carry on with your day.
5. Podcasts
The Podcasts app from Apple provides you with access to hundreds of different podcasts, from comedies to serial dramas and real-life stories. Podcasts are a great way to wind down and fall asleep to, and the built in sleep timer makes sure you don’t miss an episode of your favourite podcast when you’ve fallen asleep. You can set it to switch the podcast off in 5, 10, 20 minutes later, for example, or once an episode has ended.
6. Recolor
Recolor is a rather unique sleep app, in that it provides thousands of images perfect for some adult colouring to wind down with. Adult colouring is one of the latest wellness trends that helps you to relax, soothe your mind and soul and prepare you for a good night’s sleep.
The app has plenty of categories to choose from, including food, patterns and animals, for example. Pick a print from your favourite category and set to work colouring in. In no time at all, you’ll feel relaxed and ready to hit the hay.
7. Yoga Wake Up
This one is more for waking up peacefully after a good night’s sleep, but you’ll continue to feel the benefit throughout the day and into the next evening before bed. The Yoga Wake Up app is an alarm clock that wakes you gently and encourages you to perform a number of yoga moves and stretches as you wake up and prepare to start your day.
The app will wake you with soothing music, before an instructor walks you through a number of stretches, with the end of the routine leaving you stood up by your bed and ready to face the day’s challenges.
8. Sleep Genius
Developed using the scientific research and data as NASA does to help astronauts rest and relax, Sleep Genius is designed to guide your mind through the entire sleep cycle, before waking you gently at the best time possible. This is another app that uses soothing sounds to help you drift off to sleep, but it does so much more than that and is certainly one to consider.
9. Sleep Well Hypnosis
Mimicking the same process as traditional hypnotherapy, Sleep Well Hypnosis pairs relaxing sounds with the calming voice of a hypnotist, to guide you through a soothing process ahead of sleep. This sleep app is particularly useful for anyone who suffers from stress, anxiety or insomnia and is said to work in as little as one or two weeks.
10. White Noise
If you live in a busy area with a lot of street noise, or if your family stay up late and keep you up at night, White Noise might be the sleep app for you. It’s exactly what it says on the tin, providing white noise to drown out any other background noise that could cause you to lie awake at night. You can choose from a range of noises to best meet your own personal tastes and once you get used to it, you’ll find yourself sleeping like a baby without anything disturbing you.