With so many sleep tracking apps available, it’s hard to weed out the good from the bad.
Most either give you feedback on how well you slept during the night or play soothing sounds to help you drift off into a deep sleep. So, what about Sleep Genius?
Sleep Genius has been created by the some of the world’s leading authorities in sleep, sound, music and neuroscience. Impressive. Perhaps even more impressive is that NASA chose the Sleep Genius program as one of its featured technologies because it has been developed to help send astronauts off to sleep.
If it’s good enough for NASA astronauts then surely it’s good enough for the rest of us, right?
Let’s find out if Sleep Genius is really any different to the other sleep apps on the market.
Sleep Genius App: Now available for both iOS and Android
Main Features of Sleep Genius
Sleep Genius utilises neuroscience to help users sleep faster, better and deeper, rather than using white noise and just monitoring sleeping patterns.
In a nutshell, it has been developed to help train your brain into its natural sleep rhythms.
Sleep Genius comes with one sleep program for an optimal night’s sleep – but you can purchase more for a fee. It claims to make your body feel relaxed, slower your breathing and heart rate and release mind tension within minutes through acoustically modified music. The key is to use the sleep program in a quiet and interrupted space.
The Revive Cycle Alarm is actually quite clever and a nice alternative to traditional alarms that are sudden and loud. It gradually awakens you from any sleep stage with soothing sounds, micro phases and volume shifts over a short period of 5 minutes.
If you like the occasional nap in the middle of the day, the Power Nap feature is designed to reduce stress and make you feel more energetic with the right amount of light sleep. The progressive alarm will wake you up after a brief nap, leaving your mind recharged to face the rest of the day.
Finally, Sleep Genius will email you a personalised sleeping report each week to enable you to track sleep quality, quantity, schedule and efficiency, which is said to help improve your sleep in the long term.
Reaction from sleep science community
As we mentioned, NASA has given Alex Doman, Vera Brandes, Seth Horowitz and Lance Massey the thumbs up for creating Sleep Genius by featuring its technology.
Sleep Genius was celebrated in the 2015 edition of NASA’s prestigious annual publication, Spinoff. From medical software and home inventions to food products and more, Spinoff highlights NASA technologies and commercial products that benefit life on Earth. The publication chose Sleep Genius as a technology on the rise.
Sleep Genius Review: The Pros and Cons
Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of Sleep Genius…
Pros
- Unlike other sleep apps, Sleep Genius uses clinically tested audio that is based on neuroscience
- The sleep algorithms help you sleep more deeply and fall asleep quicker
- Prevents elevated stress caused by noisy alarms with a Revive Cycle Alarm that gradually wakes you up
- Uses four techniques (neurosensory algorithms, pink noise, multiband binaural beats and psychoacoustic music) to train your brain to learn a new wake rhythm when used consistently
- The Power Nap feature with built-in Revive Cycle enables you to take a quick afternoon nap
Comes with a sleep science section for you to learn all about the science behind the app
Cons
- Without paying for the upgrade, you won’t get the 3 additional sleep programs, multiple revive cycle alarm tunes, power nap feature, relaxation program and personalised sleep dashboard
- Sleep Genius works best on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The Android app remains buggy with several reliability issues reported.
The Verdict on the Sleep Genius App
If you want a sleep app with science behind it, then Sleep Genius is a top contender and one of the best choices on the market. The app is super easy to use and straightforward, and we particularly like the science section that shares sleep tips and tricks for users.
The key thing with the app is consistency.
It can take up to a week or even a month to see a noticeable improvement in your sleep and natural sleep rhythm.
Our favorite feature is the alarm that gradually changes to activate and wake up your brain, and let’s be honest, no one likes being jolted awake by a standard alarm. We say it’s worth giving Sleep Genius a try. It took us a while to get used to but it definitely helped us to fall asleep faster and wake up feeling less irritable.
Sleep Genius is available now for iOS on iTunes, and Android on Google Play.
Have you tried the Sleep Genius app?
Let us know your thoughts, experiences and reviews below.
