It is the most universal struggle of a 21st century kid, the thing that unites us all in experience; getting your eight hours. Jokes aside, having a good sleep routine and consistent sleep is a difficult task — but what if there were sleep apps to help?
We know that the HSC presents a huge challenge to students, who often struggle with sleeping amidst rising demands and stress levels, so we’ve decided to bring you五个改善你的睡眠设备的最佳应用e.
Jump in to find a variety of apps that will play different roles in making your night routine a success!
#1. Sleep Cycle
Image sourced fromiMore
Purpose
This app prides itself on beingan all-in-one for sleep and wellness.
Each night,your body goes through several sleep/wake cycles. First, you experience light sleep where you drift in and out — you would wake up very easily in this stage.
In the second stage, your body prepares for deep sleep. The final stage is where youmay beginto dream. Your eyes are closed but move rapidly as you undergo intense brain activity — this stage is also called REM, and is what ensures you wake up feeling like you slept well.
So, what’s the point of all this vaguely scientific info?
Sleep Cycle uses sound analysis to track your sleep stages, waking you up when you are in the lightest sleep possible.
Pros and Cons
On theSleep Cycle website, it outlines how your phone needs to be placed while you sleep. One of the downsides of this app ishow close the phone must remain to your body. The American Physiological society has completed in-depthresearchproving that blue light is highly disruptive to your sleep.
However, if you place your phone on aeroplane mode to avoid notifications (and are disciplined enough not to touch your phone in bed), this app can reap rewards.Users have reportedfeeling much more awake and alert the following day after waking up during a light stage of sleep.
Price
Sleep Cycle is free to download and use on bothAppleandAndroid. A premium feature is also available as an in-app purchase, which gives youaccessto further tracking and metrics.
#2. Tide
Image sourced fromGoogle Play Store
Purpose
Tide recognises that falling asleep can take a lot of practice. This appcombines the notion of sleep with meditation and breath, assuring you feel calm throughout your day.
You can select sounds from nature to help you fall asleep and take your mind off wandering thoughts. UNSW students have recently proven theeffectiveness of calming musicto help you sleep.
The app’s wake-up alarm is designed to be gentle, giving you a slow start to the morning.
In addition, the app providesmeditationsof different lengths and purposeswhich can help you fall asleep, feel calm or reset your thoughts.
Pros and Cons
Users are disappointed that your sleep hours can’t be logged manually with Tide. As such,this app is not designed to track your overall sleep hygiene, but rather togive you simple sleepscapes to ease your night.
However, Tide never claimed to be a sleep tracking app. It isdesigned to be a soundscape app for all restful and focused parts of your day.We think it does a great job at this, combining aesthetics with practicality!
Price
Tide is free onAppleandAndroid. Optional in-app purchases give you access to wallpapers, different soundscapes and more accurate tracking of your meditation.
A monthly subscription for this premium service currently costs $20.99 on Android.
#3. Headspace
Image sourced fromApp Store
Purpose
A good night’s sleep really begins at the start of your day. While this next app is not specifically designed for sleep, we believe its great meditations will set you well on your way to improving your bedtime schedule.
In a similar vein to Tide,the Headspace app offers guided meditation and mindfulness.It is also connected to a great site that explains thescience of mindfulness, ensuring that you are educated about what you’re consuming.
Pros and Cons
As mentioned, this is not a sleep app, so it’s not actually going to do anything for you once you fall asleep each night. However, we think this element is greatly overshadowed bythe证明的好处of meditation to your night routine.
Further, the app does offer a specificmeditation for sleepsection, which isa great feature to get you over the line just before you drift off!It’s a very versatile app in this sense.
We also like howHeadspace offers a 10-day starter course, so you will understand exactly how to meditate, amplifying the effectiveness. Within this course, you will be talked through each meditation, whether you are using it for sleep or stress, so you feel more confident to create good sleep habits.
Price
Headspace offers a free seven day trial, with subscriptions of $69.99 a year or $12.99 a month available.
#4. SleepTown
Image sourced fromApp Store
Purpose
If gaming is your thing, this may be the perfect app for you! SleepTowngamifies your development of healthy sleep habits.
Each day, you canset sleep-related goals, including getting up at a consistent time or sleeping a minimum number of hours.If you achieve these goals, you get to add to your own digital town! However, if your goals aren’t achieved, your town will be destroyed.
This dynamic app, launched by the creators of Forest, isdesigned to give you a tangible sense of achievement each time you smash those sleep goals!
Pros and Cons
One issue with this app isthe pressure it may put on users to fall asleep.When we are trying really hard to get a good night’s rest, our ambitions sometimes work with the opposite effect, making it far harder for us to sleep well.If you have an app telling you whether you succeeded or failed, this may be stressful and problematic.
However,most users have reported great benefits!One GooglePlay review suggested that “I really enjoy waking up to see what new building is in my SleepTown, and the excitement is enough to prevent me from switching out of this app when I wake up in the middle of the night.”
Price
SleepTown is free to use on bothAndroidandApple, with some optional in-app purchases.
#5. Twilight
Image sourced fromGoogle Play Store
Purpose
Of all our well-rated apps, Twilight takes the most pragmatic approach to adjusting your sleep habits.
As we’ve already chatted about,blue light can distort your circadian rhythm, making it very difficult to fall asleep. Twilight aims to get around this whilst recognising that in a busy life, you may be on your phone past an ideal time.
This app adapts your device’s screen before and after sunset to eliminate as much blue lightfrom reaching your eyes as possible. As the day dawns (or ends), the level of blue light you can access is seamlessly turned back up.
Pros and Cons
Many phones, particularlyiPhones currently have a setting to filter out blue light, meaning that you may not need this app.Some users have also reported that the app has been unreliable, though bugs seemed to be fixed very quickly.
However,Twilight slowly changes the redness of the screen to offer you a more seamless transition, which is a great benefit over your run-of-the-mill phone inbuilt.
The app also hasoptions to pause or manually choose when blue light filters come on, giving you increased control over your schedule.
Price
This app is free forAndroid.
And that’s it!
Senior high school is a busy time, and we know you won’t always get a perfect night’s sleep. We hope these apps will help you to achieve the basics; a consistent bedtime, a full night’s sleep, and the right atmosphere.
You can let us know if this article has helped you by getting in touch on the site or on our socials.
Lucinda Garbutt-Younghopes to one day be writing for a big-shot newspaper… or maybe just for a friendly magazine in the arts sector. Right now, she is enjoying studying a Bachelor of Public Communication (Public Relations and Journalism) at UTS while she writes on the side. She also loves making coffees for people in her job as a barista, and loves nothing more than a sun shower.
