[sc name=”numlist” number=”1″ title=”Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock”]
Paradoxically, our first sleep-enhancing iPhone app is an alarm clock, though this one definitely does not belong to the run-of-the-mill variety that wakes you up from your deepest and sweetest sleep with a sound so terrible that it makes you want to launch it into outer space than nuke it at least twice a day. As you can see, waking up early is not something we are fond of. Regarding the app in the spotlight, Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock, it’s an intelligent alarm clock capable of analyzing your sleep patterns, and based on the information it gathers, it wakes you up in your lightest sleep phase, ensuring that you wake up as well-rested and relaxed as Cthulhu when his eternal slumber finally comes to an end. Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock has been the number one top paid app in multiple countries (including the United States, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom), and has been featured in prestigious magazines and TV shows all over the globe. [sc name=”quote” text=”you’ll never wake up again feeling like you’ve been stomped on by a raging elephant”]
Using you iPhone’s microphone (or its sensitive accelerometer in case you’d prefer the app to track your movement instead), Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock employs a patented sound analysis technology to monitor your sleep phases, and, as we have mentioned above, wakes you up in your lightest sleep phase so that you’ll never wake up again feeling like you’ve been stomped on by a raging elephant. Sleep Cycle’s free version comes equipped with detailed sleep statistics and sleep graphs, gentle alarm melodies, a customizable wake up window, and daily physical activity tracking to shed the light on potential correlations between the levels of physical activity and sleep quality. Premium features include long term trend overviews, sleep aid helping you fall asleep faster, sleep notes to keep track of how certain events influence sleep quality, wake up mood, weather tracking, heart rate monitor, and – vampires, rejoice! – Philips HUE light bulb support with which you can simulate a natural sunrise.
[sc name=”numlist” number=”2″ title=”Sleep Well Hypnosis – Insomnia & Sleeping Sounds”]
Sleep Well Hypnosis specializes in reducing anxiety and facilitating deeper and calmer sleep via hypnosis. Whether you have trouble falling or staying asleep, listening to Sleep Well’s 25-minute long audio sessions for 1-3 weeks will prove to be effective in boosting the restorative powers of sleeping. These soothing audible sessions consist of hypnosis audio read by a certified hypnotherapist, and contain relaxing background music and the blissful sounds of nature for the ultimate mind-quieting effect. The other major anti-insomnia weapon of Sleep Well Hypnosis is the Sleep Booster, which uses binaural beats to induce your brainwave frequency into an optimal state for the deepest possible sleep. There are separate volume controls for all sounds (Sleep Booster, background music and sounds, voice), you can repeat and loop session while you’re asleep, and you can continue listening to those soothing background sounds even after the session ends.
[sc name=”numlist” number=”3″ title=”Sleep Pillow Sounds: Rain, Ocean, Relaxing Nature”]
Sleep Pillow Sounds has been featured in heaps of magazines and is recommended by sleep experts and doctors as an app that’s guaranteed to improve your sleep and help you fall asleep faster than you could say “the sloth slumbers silently”. That dandy and fine, but looking at the long list of in-app purchases that Sleep Pillow Sounds bombards you with, we have our despite – and have them despite the app’s four-and-a-half star rating based on nearly 22,000 user votes. As for what Sleep Pillow Sounds brings to the table: sounds. Hundreds of sleep-enhancing, naturally recorded, high-quality ambient sounds, to be exact, all of them aimed at providing you a better and more relaxing sleep. Even if you’re a difficult sleeper or you find yourself in a noisy environment, all you have to do is plug in your earphones, and Sleep Pillow Sounds will do the rest to give you the much-needed rest you deserve. From Sleep Pillow’s sound database, you can create your own mixes (up to a staggering 300,000 combinations), and put in some eye-pleasing nature images to really set the mood. Sleep Pillow Sounds packs an alarm clock and a sleep timer, but in light of the app’s other features, we highly doubt you’ll pay much attention to those.
