Always tired? Here are 6 iPhone apps to help you get a better night’s sleep
Busy lives can often mean restless nights – don't leave your sleep to chance and use these amazing apps to enter the land of nod
STRUGGLING to get a decent night's kip? We've rounded up some of the best sleep apps to help you catch 40 winks.
From sleep tracking to soothing sounds, you'll never have another restless night again – all thanks to your iPhone.
Before we dive into the sleep apps, it's worth mentioning that studies have shown using your phone too much before bed can make it harder to drift off.
That's thanks to the blue light emitted by your screen.
Fortunately it's easy to remedy this – just follow our iPhone Night Shift guide to activate a blue light filter on the phone.
Then, download these apps...
Rain Rain Sleep Sounds
Nothing helps motivate a good kip like the soothing sound of falling rain.
That's basically all this app does. There are more than 100 different rain tracks, including Thunderstorm, Rain on a Tent, Ocean Waves, Forest Rain and Car in the Rain.
You can combine any of the sounds you like and control the volume of each.
You can also set it on a sleep timer so the rain sounds will turn off once after a while.
Sleep Cycle
Sleep Cycle is probably one of the best-known sleeping apps.
When we're abed, we cycle through light and heavy sleep – and if you wake up during the latter, you'll feel groggy.
But by waking up in light sleep, you should rise feeling refreshed and chirpy.
That's how Sleep Cycle works: it tracks your sleep pattern and wakes you up in light sleep.
It finds the optimal time to wake you up during a pre-defined 30-minute window that ends at your set alarm time.
All you need to do is place your phone beside your bed on charge, and prepare for a glorious wake-up.
Pillow
Pillow works in much the same way as Sleep Cycle, so you can simply choose the app design you prefer.
It sits by your bedside and waits for you to be in light sleep, and will then wake you up – as long as it's near your alarm time.
Pillow also supports the Apple Watch, which should give you even more accurate sleep tracking.
And excitingly, Pillow will record audio overnight, so you'll be able to listen back to all the weird babbling you do at night.
This makes Pillow a must-have app for ghost-hunters, too...
Calm
Calm is described as an app for mindfulness and meditation, but it's great for helping get a great night's sleep too.
The app features more than 80 "sleep stories", which are adult bedtime stories designed to lull you to sleep.
It also has breathing exercises, meditation sessions, and over 30 "soothing nature sounds" for drifting off – or meditation / yoga, if you prefer.
No wonder that this was once described as the "happiest app in the world".
Relax Melodies: Sleep Sounds
This app is a little like Rain Rain Sleep Sounds, but with a more general take on snooze-y soundtracks.
It's got rain audio, sure, but you can also listen to birds tweeting, frogs chirping, or fountain water trickling.
You can listen to more than 100 sounds, including generic white noise – which is known to help get you to sleep.
You can also mix and match sounds (and adjust their volume) for the ultimate sleep soundtrack.
Good Morning Alarm Clock
Like Pillow and Sleep Cycle, this app works out the best time to wake you up – and then does just that.
But Good Morning Alarm Clock also introduces the fabulous concept of "sleep debt".
That means if the app thinks you haven't had enough sleep, you'll be owed some hours of kip.
So when it comes to the weekend, you can very simply justify of a massive lie-in with the app.
You'll get aggregated weekly stats and reminder notifications, too.
Do you know any great apps that will help you catch 40 winks? Let us know in the comments!
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