Best Apps to Help You Sleep
Are you looking to improve your sleep? We’ve researched and found the best free sleeping apps that should help you monitor your sleep and get better rest.
Are you looking to improve your sleep? We’ve researched and found the best free sleeping apps that should help you monitor your sleep and get better rest.
There are many benefits associated with getting a good night’s sleep. However, many individuals do not get sufficient rest regularly. Adults need to get about seven hours of shut-eye every night. However, many factors, such as our environment or some medical conditions like anxiety or insomnia prevent people from having a decent rest. Since we live in modern times surrounded by technology, we can use this to help us catch more ZZZ’s. Phone applications or gadgets can be used to control your sleep. We have researched and found the best free sleep apps for phones that will help you monitor your rest.
The idea of sleep tracking apps is to follow and track sleep patterns. By gathering data about your sleep, they upgrade the alarm clock on your phone to fit your cycle of sleep. They have access to the phone’s accelerometer that will adequately monitor your breathing, movements, and heartbeat. These apps are useful for helping you figure out what is the best time to wake you with the alarm. The idea of this is to help you wake up during the lightest moment of your light sleep.
These apps are used to track people’s sleep patterns, if they have sleep debt, help them get better rest at night, and check if they are at risk of sleep disorders. Even though they are popular, many professionals are not fond of these apps. Researchers that study these apps found inconclusive results. Some studies have shown that some sleep cycle apps either underestimate or overestimate sleep time because people tend to make similar movements when in light and deep sleep, so the accelerometer on the phone might not be able to distinguish them. Ultimately, the best way to track your sleep and see if you might have a disorder is to see a doctor and consider taking a polysomnography test. However, these apps are an excellent option if you don’t know anything about your sleep or the issues you have.
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The Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock is one of the most popular apps for sleep tracking. You need to keep it close to you in bed, and by using the accelerometer on your phone and it can track your movements during sleep, analyze your breathing and see when you fall asleep. If you only want to use the microphone, then you can place your phone near the bed. The paid version offers you analytics for $29 per year.
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The AutoSleep has automatic detection of whether you are using your Apple Watch or iPhone to track your sleep and syncs the data between these devices. With this feature, you can quickly change many devices frequently and not worry about your data. All you need to do is go to sleep like usual, and the app takes care of the rest and provides you with advanced analytics.
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This app is made for iOS devices that you need to keep close to you, and it uses the accelerometer to estimate all of your sleep stages. You also have many other features that integrate with other iPhone apps like weather and Health apps, to give better analytics and insight into all the factors that affect your sleep.
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This app for tracking sleep is compatible with Galaxy Gear smartwatch, Android Wear, Health app, and Pebble watch. It can record sleep talking, snoring and it has a sleep apnea detection and jet lag prevention. Along with that, you have detailed analytics of all sleep factors, a library with natural sounds and access to Spotify. Not only does this app help you sleep, but it can also prevent you from oversleeping with the wake-up CAPTCHA verification you have to pass by using math, shaking the phone or just counting sheep.
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The MotionX 24/7 is a combination of a sleep and fitness tracking app. It monitors your body and sleep, taking into consideration the activity level and weight during the day. Apart from that, it also has audio recording analysis for snoring and sleep apnea, a heartbeat integration and detailed analytics of all sleep and body factors.
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The app is based on a Stanford University designed algorithm that analyzes sleep cycle and predict the best time to wake up. You can have a range of alarm sounds to choose from, a white noise library, or you can even pick a song from the iTunes library. The app also offers detailed analytics, and the paid version also has audio tracking and fitness programs.
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The Pillow is an app for manual sleep tracking, and you input your wake times with the button. However, the app does have additional features, like heartbeat integration. With the paid version you have the option to record snoring or unusual breathing and get detailed analytics. These features are handy for detecting sleep apnea. There is also a power nap feature that will analyze your daily naps, and a function that plays calming music for sleep.
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The To Bed app is a very straightforward app that tells you when you need to go to bed and when to wake up based on your age. Of course, with the vacation mode, you can temporarily turn off these reminders.
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This app is used primarily for alarms and falling asleep. It features a library with more than 100 songs that will wake you up or fall asleep. Additionally, it records audio, and it has a smart alarm clock, sleep tracking, and a power nap mode.
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The Sleep diary gives you detailed analytics and heartbeat data, and you can even use it on the Apple Watch, independently from the iPhone. It also offers information on how long you need to fall asleep, and it tracks movement and your heartbeat. And most importantly, it gives you insight and warns you of potential health concerns you may not even know about.
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The Sleep++ is a very minimalistic sleep tracking app. It only tracks sleep, without notifications and analytics, but you don’t have to record your sleep time manually as you can do it using your watch. With the paid version you can remove adds for $1.99.
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The Sleep Genius app was developed based on NASA research that was conducted to help astronauts sleep better. The focus of the app is on minimizing sleep deprivation, with the smart alarm, sleep analysis, power nap, and relaxation program. It has unique sounds that are supposed to work better than any white noise or natural tones.
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This app tracks your sleep by watching your movement. You do not have to do anything manually because the app has a better analysis of moves and it adjusts its sensitivity if you change your movement patterns in just a few nights. It also differs tossing and turning from waking up at night.
14. SleepBot
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The SleepBot offers many features that not all paid apps have, but it’s free. It is backed by the National Academy of Engineering and the U.S. National Institute of Health. With its combining features of a smart alarm, ambient sound machine, movement sensitivity, detailed analytics, sleep tracker, and sleep tips, it will provide excellent help with your sleep.
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The Dream Watcher app records your nights and provides analytics, just like any other sleep app. Since it is specialized for snoring it also has a library of classical music and nature sounds as well as an alarm and timer functions.
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The SnoreLab is widely popular with over one million downloads. The developers claim that it monitors over 5 million nights of sleep. It provides information on the intensity of your scoring and a playback option to hear samples of snoring to see how to improve your breathing. You can even integrate it with the iOS health app and use data from both apps to accurately track your sleep. It also has a library with sounds from nature that will aid with fall asleep and a full-night recording mode. In the paid version you can remove ads and get analytics for more than three nights.
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An app made just for snoring, the Snore Report records you during the night and gives detailed reports. It tracks the intensity of your snoring by comparing it to the majority of the population. It also has sound frequencies that determine your Snore Score and based on that score it gives you advice on how to improve the breathing during sleep to minimize snoring.
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With over 5 million downloads, the Sleep Talk app monitors what noises you make during. It records only when it detects abnormal sound so that it won’t use up all the storage space on your phone. It also has a community where you can share your recordings and listen to clips of snoring from other users.
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The SnoreClock has a graph of your night with marked times when the snoring was recorded. It can record up to 11 hours, and it stops when the battery on your phone is low.
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Awoken is one of the best dream journal apps. The app mainly focuses on lucid dreaming, and it has dream clues and reminders that are responsible for recognizing your dream state. Also, it includes a speech-to-text feature for you to capture as much of your dream as possible, and with the analytics, you can see the most common words and themes related to your dream.
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The iDream is a combination of a dream journal and a dream dictionary. It offers an alphabetical list with thousands of dream interpretation and meanings. These features are beneficial because they can help you analyze and understand your dreams and any hidden meaning they might have. Also, it offers password protection and sharing on social media.
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The Dream Journal Ultimate app is a useful dream journal built like a social network. The community works similar to any other social media – you can share your dreams so that other users can see them, comment on the thoughts of other people and even get feedback. If you want to protect your dreams, you can set a pin. Also, you can get daily reminders to log a dream.
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This app has no sound library but is fully functional with Siri Support and the Apple Watch so you can get better-tracking information for your nap and you can integrate your iOS Health app. You can start, pause and stop your nap while the app monitors your heart rate.
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This app includes a lot of features that will help you take a power nap. It provides information in cute kitty graphics, many sound library choices, and a power nap timer of 30 minutes.
25. Power Nap with Andrew Johnson
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This app provides a guided session for meditation that is led by Andrew Johnson, a famous self-help coach.
Iva is an art historian and an art lover who always had a passion for writing and sleep! When she is not researching and testing new mattresses on the market, you can find her binge-watching TV shows, eating tons of junk food or playing with her dog Bart.