People of all ages suffer from sleep loss, insomnia, and poor sleep quality, which lead to several mental and physical health issues. The main causes behind it are a sedentary lifestyle, professional work stress, and several personal reasons. While the duration of your sleep is important, you shouldn’t neglect the sleep quality to comprehend whether the time you slept sleeping was rewarding or not. Sleep comprises several stages into which human beings keep oscillating while they are asleep forming a sleep cycle. Let’s understand it in a better way.
What is Sleep Cycle?
Sleep is not uniform but comes in the form of cycles that progress smoothly from each of the four different sleep stages of non-uniform length. Each stage plays a crucial role in keeping your mind and body at rest to stay refreshed all day long. The four sleep stages are classified into two broad categories- rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM (NREM) sleep. The four different stages depict distinct brain activities during sleep and are discussed below.
#1. Dozing off
Stage 1 / N1 is what we generally call the dozing-off stage, which typically lasts five to ten minutes. Here the body is not in a completely relaxed state, but the body and brain activity slows down. An individual can be easily woken up in this stage. If not, they will quickly transition into stage 2.
#2. Light Sleep
Stage 2 / N2 is characterized by a drop in the body temperature and muscle relaxations. The breathing and heart rate gradually slows down as the body enters a quiet stage with no eye movements. Stage 2 lasts for up to 10-25 minutes, and the brain activity slows down and can get even longer during the night time.
#3. Deep Sleep
Stage 3 / N3 is what we call deep sleep, and waking up someone in this phase becomes even harder. The muscles relax further, and the pulse and breathing rate decrease even more in this stage. The brain activity shows a familiar delta wave pattern. It is in this stage that the body recovers, grows, and strengthens the immune system.
#4. REM Sleep
In the REM Sleep stage, the brain activity shows signs of acceleration, and the human body undergoes atonia, a condition when the complete body, except your eyes and breathing muscles, gets paralyzed. This stage strengthens the cognitive abilities of the brain to boost functions like learning, memory, and creativity. Fascinating, right? Sleep is indeed mysterious, and monitoring it is a complicated task. Thankfully we have several competent sleep trackers that assist you in monitoring your sleep patterns and help ensure you are getting enough quality sleep. These statistics help figure out the root causes behind such issues and indicate whether you need any medical aid. After hunting for powerful sleep-tracking apps, we have put together the best ones you are likely to find for improving your lifestyle and boosting your productivity. These sleep trackers analyze your sleep, are susceptible to sounds made during sleep, body movements, and other behaviors, and present you with a vivid picture of the sleep quality. So let’s explore them one at a time!
SleepScore
Featured in New York Times, SleepScore is hands down the best sleep-tracking app you can employ to precisely track your sleep cycles and receive professional advice and valuable insights about improving your sleep quality. SleepScore delivers personalized details about your sleep cycles which can be included to make essential changes in your lifestyle to improve your sleeping patterns. SleepScore leverages sonar technology to deliver accurate results on Android devices and iPhones. The key features of SleepScore are as follows:
Get your daily sleep rating with valuable insights.Statistics on 4 stages of your sleep- light, deep, REM, and sudden awakenings. A smart alarm clock designed to gently wake you at the ideal time in your sleep cycle.Get simple recommendations to improve the four sleeping stages. Receive tailored science-backed details about your sleeping patterns from the top sleep experts around the world. A detailed comparison of sleeping patterns with people of similar age and gender.
Sleep Cycle
Use Sleep Cycle, an intelligent sleep-tracking app with a built-in alarm clock that helps you to relax, sleep better and track your sleep routine. You will also get a detailed analysis of your sleep cycle to monitor your sleeping pattern from bedtime until you wake up which later can be used to improve your sleeping habits. Available for Android and iOS devices, the app only wakes you up when you are in the light sleep phase to avoid making you feel lousy throughout the day. Sleep Cycle can prove to be the perfect sleep tracker for the following reasons:
It gently wakes you up with a natural wake-up call.Enjoy relaxed bedtime and track your sleep to learn personalized sleep patterns with detailed analysis.The smartphone can be placed on the nightstand or floor and not necessarily under the pillow to monitor sleep.Get realistic insights about light sleep, deep sleep, and overall health through patented sound technology or an accelerometer. Choose personalized alarm sounds. Compare your sleeping data with the sleep statistics of other users.
Pillow- Auto Sleep Tracker
Pillow can be your smart sleep assistant if you face trouble sleeping or want to analyze the sleeping cycles. This auto sleep tracker also syncs with your Apple Watch, and if you do not have one, don’t worry! The app works equally fine when you place the iOS device on your mattress or under the pillow. Pillow works as a smart alarm clock that wakes up only when you are in the lightest sleep stage so that you start your day feeling refreshed. The app accurately records all the important events, such as snoring, sleep apnea, and sleep talking, and notifies you about it later. The app gives you the freedom to explore sleeping trends and compares your sleep quality with the Apple Health metrics that influences your sleeping patterns. Pillow is designed to automatically detect your sleep cycle and analyze your heart rate, but you can always switch between manual and automatic modes anytime. Pillow also supports widgets for devices running on iOS 14 or above, that display your sleep report on the screen when you wake up.
Sleep As Android
Considered a swiss knife to optimize and track your sleeping schedule, Sleep As Android is one of the best sleep-tracking apps, which you cannot ignore as an Android user. Compatible with all the latest Android devices and wearables such Wear OS, Galaxy/Gear (Tizen), Garmin (ConnectIQ), Mi Band + Amazfit (via companion apps), Polar (H10, OH10, Senes), FitBit (Ionic, Sense, Versa), PineTime, Pebble, Sleep As Android provides you with the following features:
Smart wake-up and sleep cycle tracking, including feature-rich alarm and bi-weekly and shift work schedules.It uses Sonar, a revolutionary contact-less ultrasonic sleep tracking feature that works without placing the phone on the bed.Offers features like Sleep Score: complete evaluation of your sleep \’s quality made of deficit, regularity, efficiency, sleep phases, snoring, oxygenation (SPO2), and heart rate variability (HRV) on wearable devices. Advanced and reliable AI-powered sound classification mechanism to notify Sleep talk recording, sickness detection, and snoring detection. Analyses low breath rate alarm using Sleep respiration analysis.In-built bedtime reminders and irregular sleep-tracking features help you achieve a regular sleeping schedule.
Sleep Monitor
Packed with powerful features, Sleep Monitor is another app that you can employ to monitor your sleeping cycles and get detailed analyses of sleeping trends. Available for both Android and iOS users, What I love about this proficient app are its friendly reminders that ensure you get to bed on time and wake up in the most gentle way possible at sunrise. Some of its amazing features are written down below.
Get sleep-related trends along with weekly and monthly data stats to improve sleeping quality.Records the snoring and grinding sounds you make during sleeping and allows you to listen to them later on. Considers your drinking, eating, exercising, and any other medical or emotional conditions and illustrates its impact on your sleep. The app uses the microphone and accelerator sensors to record the body movements and environmental noise changes and understand your sleeping stages. Supports more than 20 languages Provides useful information such as sleep scores, sleep cycle graphics, sleep statistics, and sleep noise audios. Offers high-quality sleep-inducing music to calm your mind and help you doze off to sleep.
ShutEye
ShutEye is an app for users struggling to fall asleep, facing sleep deprivation, or suffering from sleep apnea. The app precisely tracks your sleep cycle and makes sincere recommendations to improve your sleeping habits and attain the highest quality of sleep you need. The app is downloadable on Android and iPhone and features a variety of tools that assist you to fall asleep right away in the healthiest way possible and monitor your sleep cycles to give valuable insights. ShutEye also includes a sleep recording tool that records your sleep talking, snoring and other activities you subconsciously perform while sleeping. ShutEye sleep tracker is equipped with the following features to improve your sleep quality.
Sleep tracker for understanding the scientific perspective behind your sleep cycles. Smart alarm to wake up fresh in the morning. Snore detector to know your snoring level at night. Tons of relaxing music and sleep sounds to start sleeping after a stressful day. Get an overall sleep rating by CBTI Sleep Coaching to understand your sleeping quality.
Sleepzy
Let’s not forget Sleepzy, a sleep monitoring app for Android and iOS has a fresh look and feel to keep an eye on your sleep habits while sleeping and improve its quality over time. The in-built alarm clock wakes you up at the optimal time, provides nightly sleep statistics, and detects snoring. Sleepzy analyses your sleep cycle or pattern and notifies you about sleep debt to develop healthy habits for wellness. An essential app for everyone, whether you are a morning person or like to stay up late, Sleepzy offers the following benefits:
Wakes you up at the optimal time so that you stay fresh throughout the day. Set sleep goals and monitor sleeping debts to ensure you get enough sleep. Make adjustments in your daily habits to improve your sleeping quality.Get personal sleep-related advice based on your weekly statistics and compare it with the worldwide stats. Sync your sleep-related data with the Apple Health appGet in-depth insights using advanced stats and track your daily progress.
Conclusion
Having adequate and relaxing sleep is an essential constituent for achieving wholesome health so waking up feeling tired or drowsy surely needs attention. The apps listed above can track your sleep cycle and provide you with insightful analysis of your sleeping patterns, indicating how well you sleep. Sleep tracking reports come in handy for medical purposes and also guide an individual to improve their sleep quality by trying to achieve their sleeping goals. You may also explore some best sleep and meditation apps.
