With this free app, you'll suddenly get up easily

You know the feeling, you’ve slept for 8 hours but wake up dead tired. This happened to me almost every day, I was a real snooze princess. Until I found this app and suddenly, yes really, I transformed from a grumpy morning person to someone who gets out of bed fresh and fruity, and no, I still don’t sing in the shower, but getting up is already a lot easier.

The big secret

Has the Sleep Tracker app passed you by? Let me catch you up: This app tracks your sleep rhythm, and if you indicate that you need to get up before 07:00, the app ensures that you are woken up at the best moment. Not only are you woken up at the perfect time for you, but also in a much more pleasant way. So no digital cute-try-it-out melody, but a wide choice of various natural sounds, think of the sound of the sea and singing birds. By the way, those sounds get progressively louder so that you really, believe me, wake up. And did you know that you especially shouldn’t look at your alarm clock at night to see what time it is?

This is how it works

During your sleep, you experience about four different phases that together form your sleep cycle. Each night you go through such a cycle three to five times, depending on how long you sleep. In short, you sleep both deeply and lightly in such a cycle. In your light sleep, your brain is most active and your body is relaxed, you may be turning or mumbling a lot in this sleep. When your partner says they can’t sleep because of your turning, you were probably in your light sleep.

During light sleep, because your brain is so active, it’s easiest to wake up. So if your alarm goes off while you’re in deep sleep, you wake up feeling tired. The app lets your alarm go off when it senses that you are in light sleep, so you can get up more easily and don’t wake up tired.

But how useful is the app really?

The app measures which phase of sleep you are in by recording the sounds you make in your sleep. It tracks your movements and breathing. If you wear a smartwatch, your heart rate can also be included in the measurements. This provides extra information, allowing the app to measure more accurately which phase you are in. The app is therefore a great way to measure when you can be woken up best, but to measure more accurately, a smartwatch is needed. Users of the app report benefiting from it. Some reviews: ‘I no longer wake up so tired’, ‘I get out of bed more easily’ and ‘I find the soothing alarm so nice.’.

I have been using the app for a few months now and getting up is a lot easier ever since. I even believe my housemates are happy with it.