Track Your

Sleep is mysterious. But sleeptracking apps promise to help you understand when you cross the threshold between waking and sleeping—and what happens in between. Tracking app can be useful for helping you recognize patterns in your sleep habits. Do you feel sluggish when you sleep from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. but energetic if you shift your shuteye to 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.? Do you sleep better when your bedroom is cooler or on days you exercise? Is your sleep disrupted if you have caffeine after lunchtime?

One of the most popular of the sleep-related apps (or applications) for iPhone, Sleep Cycle works by tracking your movements during the night in order to perfectly time your morning awakening.

Sleep Cycle relies on your smartphone's accelerometer to monitor movement. The idea is that you place your smartphone near you in bed and that it will register movements. When you are in deeper sleep, especially REM sleep, it will document this stillness. When you are restless towards morning, drifting into lighter stages of sleep, it will seize on this wakefulness to alert you to get up for the day.

This app is compatible with both iPhones and Android models. It’s clean graphs let you easily see general trends—which may be all you need to understand your patterns. We also love that it has more than a dozen smart-alarm sounds and lulling sounds to choose from (compared with just around half a dozen of each from SleepScore), so getting up and going to bed both feel a lot more pleasant.

Therefore, though Sleep Cycle is an exciting development in inexpensive technology that may help us to monitor our sleep, it seems that it is really only accurate to track your bedtime and wake time. If you have any concerns about the quality of your sleep, it’s a good idea to talk to a doctor. If you’re an otherwise healthy person who just wants to gain some insight into your sleep routine , tracking devices might be a good option. It is recommended that you just take the numbers with a grain of salt.