Sleep Cycle

• Sleep cycle is a sleep tracker app that will give you a pretty good record of your sleeping patterns based on movement. The most exciting feature, though, is that you can use Sleep Cycle as an alarm clock, which utilizes the sleep data to wake you up in your most awake state. That’s all a fancy way of saying- you’ll wake up feeling calmer and ready to face the day if you replace your traditional alarm clock with Sleep Cycle!

Headspace

• Most people already know Headspace as the most popular and widespread meditation app. Some of the newcomers to this app (or people who don’t regularly meditate) might be interested to know that Headspace offers 45 minutes to hour-long “sleepcasts,” which are basically meditations designed to guide you into a restful and deep sleep! The “sleepcasts” are updated regularly, so you always have new ones to choose from. P.S. all of these features are on the free version, sign up for a membership and you unlock so many more sleep-benefitting elements.

Insight Timer

• Insight timer is also a meditation app that has tons of free content. This app is excellent for people who would like to use guided meditations to fall asleep but don’t even want to consider signing up for a membership (but still want new options updated consistently). The only downside to insight timer is that you may have to hunt for practitioners or meditations that work for you, as there is tons of content to choose from!

Calm

• Calm is an app that has a variety of uses. Of course, Calm has guided meditations you can use for sleep (or sleep stories), but it also has no-frills features- like simple white noise/soundscapes to fall asleep to. If you would like to close your eyes to rolling waves or a thunderstorm outside and you don’t want to invest in a sound machine, Calm is your ticket. Calm also includes a feature for resonance breathing, which is just a fancy way of saying breathing in and out for the same amount of time to calm your nervous system. Practicing resonance breathing before bed will help you to wind down for the day and sleep easily.