Sleep is a vital part of our overall well-being. Not getting enough sleep can seriously affect your day-to-day life, causing you to be depressed, irritable, and unfocused. Receiving a restful night’s sleep isn’t exactly the easiest task for everyone. In fact, with the amount of stress Americans tend to carry nowadays, getting the proper amount of REM sleep our bodies require can be impossible. The good news is that plenty of technologies have been created to aid in our sleep. One of those new inventions being sleep tracking apps that help track your sleep habits as well as apps that help you fall asleep. Let’s take a closer look at the best sleep apps out on the market today.
If your sleep aid needs go beyond apps, contact Dr. Shukla. With a state of the art facility, advanced sleep study techniques, and sleep apnea treatment, he is your top NYC sleep doctor.
Sleep Tracking
First off, it’s important to know why sleep tracking can help you with your sleep. When you pay attention to your sleep habits, you can be aware of where you might be falling awry on sleep. About 50-70 million Americans have a sleep disorder, many of whom are completely unaware that they do. In fact, over a third of people get fewer than 7 hours of sleep a night (7-7.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep is the daily requirement). By tracking your sleep, you can see if you’re getting the required dosage. If you are consistently off track, this could prompt a visit to a professional sleep doctor to receive a proper diagnosis.
Why Tracking Apps Work
Sleep tracking apps are becoming increasingly popular these days. This is because most of them are offered for free or a very low cost and they’re very easy to figure out. So how do they work? Sleep tracking apps monitor your breathing and body movements while you sleep by using your phone’s accelerometer. With these results, they are able to determine what sleep stage you’re in. The benefit of being able to know what sleep stage you’re in allows the apps to time an alarm to go off when you are in the lightest stage of sleep, causing less grogginess in the morning. This is quite useful if you sleep alone, but having a partner or pet will, unfortunately, offset the accelerometer.
Best Sleep Apps
Sleep Cycle
This app is perhaps the most well-known sleep app on the market. It not only uses the accelerometer but also the built-in microphone on your phone to monitor your breathing. This app is great for those who have a partner or pet that could potentially throw off the accelerometer.
Good Morning
This app uses the weather app and any health apps on your phone along with the accelerometer to take into account other factors that may be affecting your sleep, such as lack of exercise or cold weather.
Pillow
Pillow is very similar to Sleep Cycle with some added bonuses. While the app tracks your heartbeat and quality of sleep, it also offers a power nap mode and sleep sound recordings to help you fall asleep more easily.
Sleep Time
Sleep Time is another app that not only tracks your sleep but also provides some soothing recordings to help you fall and stay asleep. Like Sleep Cycle, it will wake you within a 30-minute window when you’re in your lightest sleep stage. You can also set your own alarm sound with a song of your choosing.
Downloading a sleep-tracker app is the first step to achieving better sleep. Try one out for a week or two to see if your sleep habits are healthy. If you find they are not, seek out an NYC sleep doctor, like Dr. Shukla, to lead you on the path of a better night’s sleep. Give Sleep MD a call at 917-935-4864!
