Sunday, March 21, 2010

Sleep Cycle App

When M moved to Chicago he left me his iPhone to use. At first I thought - what do I need this for? Now I think - how did I ever live without this amazing invention?
I love it, I love it, I love it.

There are so many uses for the iPhone (directions, oh heck yes) but my new favourite app is Sleep Cycle. Ever since reading Angela's blog post about sleep cycles, I wanted to investigate my sleep patterns and figure out my optimal bedtime and wake up time. Before I got a chance to do the research, M told me about the Sleep Cycle app.

Healthy sleepers follow a five phase sleep cycle. When you are woken during the wrong phase, REM or deep sleep, you pretty much feel like a zombie and want to hit the snooze button. If awoken during light sleep you (supposedly) feel refreshed and rested.

I had been having a really hard time waking up in the mornings, which is not typical for me, so I figured why not try out the Sleep Cycle app for 99 cents. Here's how it works.

1. When you are ready to go to bed, turn the app on and choose a time to set your alarm.
You will be woken up anytime in the half hour period leading up to when you set the alarm, depending on when you're in the lightest sleep phase. If you set the alarm for 7am, you'll be woken during your lightest sleep phase between 6:30-7am. (This is the biggest flaw of the app in my opinion. What if you're not in light sleep anytime during that half hour period?)

2. Next, place your iPhone on the corner of your bed. The iPhone tracks your movements and from this can determine what phase of sleep you're in.
3. Wake up in a happy mood! Every morning i look forward to checking out my sleep statistics to see how the night went.

This was a good night! Look at all that deep sleep!
I wonder what I was dreaming about this night?
You can see how I was tossing and turning from 5-6am on this morning.
I've used this app a total of 13 nights and I really think it works. It might be all in my head but I have been waking up feeling good every morning since using the app. I would much rather wake up happy, a half hour earlier than I expected, than wake up feeling exhausted.

Thoughts, anyone?

3 comments:

  1. Eeeuuuu I did not know about that app! It looks interesting ;-)

    As for the IPhone, I started to want to buy one when V told me Steve had one... And now, I am addicted to my IPhone. such an amazing way to lose my time ;)

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  2. I have had some good and bad nights with sleepcycle but I think it is a pretty cool app.

    As for the iPhone I knew you would feel that way and I was right!!

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  3. I want to find out about my sleepcycle. Can you hook me up the next time we are sleeping in the same house? I can't wait to see what mine is....

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