4 Sleep Apps: Because Your Productivity Depends on a Good Night’s Rest

According to Arianna Huffington, sleep deprivation has become a status symbol for success in our modern round-the-clock, work-obsessed era. A fairly solid indication of this can be illustrated by the fact that 80% of people will check their emails on their smartphones 15 minutes before they get out of bed. Sleep apps could place a much-needed boundary.

But this has been outed time and time again by the medical community as perhaps THE best way to destroy your productivity, gut creativity, and destroy your overall happiness in life (probably because you’re not making progress … due to the unproductivity from sleep deprivation).

So how have people like Huffington been able to achieve such massive successes over the years? Perhaps it might have to do with the fact that they were able to master their own personal sleep habits by knowing exactly how much they needed in order to reach optimal productivity potential …

And the cool part is that in our modern era, there are apps and gadgets for that.

#1: Up by Jawbone

Up is more than just an app … it practically functions as your own personal cloud data-driven life coach. The system itself has two components: the Up app and the Tracker.

While the system is loaded with other features, its ability to facilitate a healthy circadian rhythm makes it an insanely powerful productivity tool. While you sleep, it will track your movements, which it will analyze. Also, the Bluetooth-connected Tracker bracelet will put off gentle vibrations minutes before it’s time to wake up.

#2: Sleep Cycle

The Sleep Cycle is a very helpful app that also monitors sleep cycles, but not for the sole purpose of analysis.

Its prime capability is to determine when your REM cycle is at its lightest period. Once it knows that you’re practically on the edge of consciousness, it will wake you up. Waking up from deep dream-state sleep can be a nasty jolt, but this app will make sure that hopping out of bed is super easy … so that you can start your day off feeling refreshed.

#3: Naturespace

This sleep app has become almost an essential for me, if I want to have a good night’s rest. While it doesn’t do anything fancy, like REM cycle analysis, it essentially helps you fall asleep and stay asleep. How so?

Random noise can be a sleep killer, but white noise is a fantastic sleep enabler. So this app provides several hi-def 3D holographic audio recordings of naturally occurring sounds from chirping birds to ocean waves. When you can drown out the car alarms, the spouse’s snoring, and the neighbor’s obscenely loud surround sound system, then you might actually be able to get something done the following day.

#4: AppCertain

Sometimes it’s not always outside influences that will wreck a circadian rhythm. In fact, sometimes we were the cause of our own dismal sleep cycles all along. It sure can be tempting to check my emails at 2AM if you just can’t seem to drift off, but is that really going to help? I think not.

But AppCertain has added a curfew function, which will actually lock down certain apps on your smartphone, tablet, etc., and stop you from accessing those technological sleep hindrances.

At least for an easily distracted go-getter like me, this particular app can do wonders.

Why No Sleep Means Lost Potential

Sometimes, it’s just better to save work for the morning, because it’s better to come at the day with a full recharge. Medical testing has shown that someone who missed an entire night of sleep will display the equivalent impairment of an intoxicated person over the blood alcohol index limit for driving.

So if you think you’re going to knock that board meeting out of the park because you stayed up all night preparing for it … then you might as well be going in after happy hour.

If not, then these four options should help you avoid such a scenario.