If you’re feeling restless lately or suffering from insomnia, you’re not alone. In this busy world, rest, relaxation, and a good night’s sleep are more and more difficult with endless distractions from social media and the pressures of modern society. Whether you’re looking for a meditation to clear your mind, relaxing sounds to bring a sense of calm, a journal prompt to unload your racing thoughts, or perhaps you want to track how much sleep you’re really getting with charts and graphs, there’s something for everyone in this breakdown of the best sleep apps to help you catch more zzz’s.
1. BEST FOR MINDFULNESS: HEADSPACE
Headspace is a popular meditation app, but its free version also features "sleepcasts" – 50 minute-long audio descriptions (that act as adult bedtime stories) to help you visualize calming experiences like a walk through a garden or a cozy cottage overlooking a lake. They release new stories every night so you’ll never get bored. Plus, if you upgrade to the paid version, you unlock a myriad of meditation courses catered for your particular concern, whether that be reflection, sleep, or stress.
2. BEST FOR BEDTIME STORIES: CALM
Calm is a popular app featuring stories, meditations, and music that aim to improve sleep, enhance relaxation and strengthen mental fitness including categories for stress and ASMR. It’s well-known for its bedtime stories for children and adults, specifically because it features some celebrity voices like Matthew McConaughey, Kelly Rowland, and Harry Styles to help you doze off.
3. BEST FOR PERSONALIZED SOUNDSCAPES: NOISLI
Noisli is a great one to drown out any noisy distractions – a soothing “soundscape” for your ears only. Create your ideal soundscape with customizable options like a louder rainstorm, quieter wind, or more trees rustling. Mix each soundscape according to the ambiance you want to create and find dreamland with ease. You can even use this one in the day to help you focus too!
4. BEST FOR HYPNOTHERAPY & ASMR TECHNIQUES: SLUMBER
As well as soundscapes and assisted sleep meditation, Slumber also offers ‘soothing stories’ by therapeutic hypnotist Dan Jones who uses hypnosis techniques to help you relax and drift off. The story and soundscape combination, which you can alter with volume according to your preference, provide a deep sense of calm to find slumber-land!
5. BEST FOR EMPTYING YOUR MIND: REFLECTLY
If you have an overactive mind; thoughts, and ideas whirring around, especially as your head hits the pillow – overthinking that thing you said today, or tasks on your to-do list – unloading your mind each evening with some journal prompts in Reflectly could be a great way to switch off. By noting down any worries, passing thoughts, or creative ideas, you can acknowledge them, empty your mind, and sleep soundly knowing that they're right there for you to face the next day. After all, worrying about them won’t resolve them, and they will still be there in the morning. (Plus, you’ll be able to tackle any issues with more gusto if you’ve had a restful night’s sleep!)
6. BEST FOR WAKING UP REFRESHED: SLEEP CYCLE (Smart Alarm Clock)
If you want to learn how you slept, but don’t want to wear a tracker watch or sensor, Sleep Cycle is the app for you. It tracks your sleep patterns, from deep (REM) sleep, to light sleep, to whether you woke up in the night through detecting coughs, snoring, sleep talking, and other sounds. It can also optimize your rest with a gentle alarm clock that doesn’t interrupt your all-important REM sleep. Instead, you provide a 30-minute window in which you can wake, and the alarm will sound when you’re in the lightest sleep so you can wake up feeling refreshed.
7. BEST FOR SLEEP TRACKING WITH GRAPHS: PILLOW
Working with data from your Apple Watch, in a snapshot, you can see exactly how you’ve slept with the data that the sleep tracking app, Pillow provides. Clear, easy-to-understand charts and graphs show you how long you spent in each stage of sleep – deep sleep, REM sleep, and light sleep, as well as any interruptions that happened during the night. You can also work to improve your sleep quality over time with a score to track improvement. Gentle vibrations wake you up slowly in the morning while you’re in the lightest stage of sleep so you can wake feeling ready to tackle the day ahead!
8. BEST FOR SLEEP MONITORING ANALYSIS: SLEEP SCORE
This is one for the goal-diggers. Sleep Score allows you to input sleep goals and provides actionable science-backed advice on how you can reach them. It provides a wealth of detailed sleep data and can wake you up slowly with its intelligent alarm clock so you feel less groggy. On the free version, you can get 7 days' worth of detailed sleep data. An upgrade to the paid version will help you track your sleep in the long term to provide the data you need along with recommendations towards improving the quality of your sleep. You can see your progress, spot patterns, and compare your ‘sleep score’ over time.
9. BEST FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT: PZIZZ
Pzizz uses something called “psychoacoustic principles” based on clinically proven sleep interventions to help you to “fall asleep fast, stay asleep and wake up feeling refreshed”. You input the target time you’d like to be asleep by, then Pzizz creates a personalized playlist of soothing nature sounds and relaxing voiceovers to guide you to a state of calmful bliss. With the paid version, you can enjoy “nap mode”, “focus mode” for daytime use, and more customizable sounds to fall asleep to. Plus, JK Rowling is a fan, and you don’t have to be connected to the internet to use Pzizz – it works offline too – bonus!
10. BEST FOR NOTICING WHAT’S IMPACTING YOUR SLEEP QUALITY: TIDE
If you struggle to drift off at night and want to get to the root cause of why, Tide will help you track how the rest of your life habits are impacting the quality of your sleep. With the built-in journal, you can note all the factors that led to hours of deep rest or no sleep at all. For example, whether you exercised later than usual today, had caffeine after 5 pm, or worked right up until you went to bed. From there, you can start creating habits that will aid you in a restful night’s sleep every night! Using a minimalist design interface, Tide is inspired by travel, nature, and meditation for a sleep app with natural soundscapes, inspiring quotes, and mindfulness practices to help you to alleviate stress, stay focused, relax, and get better sleep.
DREAMLAND AWAITS...
Getting the recommended 7-10 hours of sleep per night (it’s different for everyone) improves just about every part of your health and life. It helps your body to digest food, regulates your energy and mood, assists with cognitive brain function, aids healthy skin, hair, nails, and other physical signs of aging, can protect against weight gain and long-term serious health conditions, and ultimately, keeps your body working at its best which means you can live your best life!
For more benefits of a restful night's sleep and tips to doze off more easily, take a look at how to get better sleep every day.
