My boyfriend and I have been using the Sleep Cycle iPhone app for the past two weeks. I’ve been surprised by its accuracy, and find it completely fascinating.
Sleep Cycle uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to measure your movement while you sleep. Less movement = deeper sleep. I was a bit skeptical, but it does seem to track these patterns properly. The time when I’m up in the middle of the night matches the peak on my graph the next day. Maybe most amazingly, there’s no interference from the movement on the other side of the bed.
I’ve had extreme difficulty staying asleep for the past year and a half. No night is without a wake-up about four hours in. I’ve tried everything from vitamins to Ambien, which nearly killed me (do NOT use Ambien!!). I’ve also tried old-fashioned stuff like herbal tea, milk, and even a potato before bed. (Funnily enough, the potato did the best job, but I’m not too stoked on loading up on carbs before each night’s sleep.)
To give you an idea, here is last night:
It should look more like this:
Basically, I sleep backwards.
Sleep Cycle doesn’t tell you how to solve these kinds of problems, but it does let you track the results of small changes in your pre-sleep routine. It also lets you wake up more gently, which is huge. If you set your alarm for 8 a.m., it will go off anywhere from 7:45 to 8:15, choosing the period of lightest sleep. I’d say this works well about 75% of the time for me, which is much better than without.
Sleep Cycle’s on sale right now for $0.99.