Sleep App: Yay or Nay?
By Judy Lee ‘17
Sleep is a love-hate relationship for a lot of people–especially college students. Whether it’s that quick nap in your dorm before class starts freshman year or…that quick nap in your car before class starts senior year, sleep is a necessity for everyone. Now, being the quintessential college student in that I average maybe 4-6 good hours of sleep a night, I decided that perhaps I should work on that seeing as I’ll have to adult sooner or later. Hence, I downloaded Sleep Cycle:
This app, in its free verision, allows you to set a bracket of time in which you are okay with the app waking you up. Then, you leave the phone near your bed and it tracks your movements while you sleep to determine which level of sleep you’re receiving. To do this, it utilizes your microphone to pick up minute sounds.
Once you wake up to the (very cute) alarm, you can check your stats and see just how your sleep was mapped out the night before, even seeing how it ranked in percentage form relative to other nights of sleep you’ve had. In order to do this, you have to have at least 4 nights of sleep before it gives you percentages since it needs to set a baseline.
So, the bottom line: did it really help me get my sleep act together? Was it accurate in gauging my levels of sleep? Well, yes and no.
Did it get my sleep act together?
Not singlehandedly. I initially thought that this was going to be a magical little instrument that would wake me up at the peak of restfulness every time. Let me tell you, I am either stupid and using it wrong, or am really hopeless. Now, not to say that it’s terrible at doing this, but I generally don’t feel much different waking up this way than setting my own alarm. HOWEVER, this app existing in my brain has automatically made me more likely to wake up the first couple tries instead of snoozing repeatedly. It has made me that much more mindful of when I need to be awake, which I appreciate.
Was it accurate?
As stated above, not really for me. The charts made sense, but the percentages didn’t. HOWEVER, I do concede that my location placement of the phone was not consistent throughout, which might have made the outcomes different based on how well it could pick up sound from that particular vantage point that night.
Should I get it?
Sure! If anything, this was really great to make me more thankful for my sleep. It has made me think of sleep in more strategic terms rather than making tired concession. Of course, there are many options to choose from! Take your pick.
