Fix Your Bad Sleep Habits With the Shleep App
There are many expensive sleep technologies out there, not to mention supplements and products designed to give you more “energy” throughout the day. But for most of us, if we feel tired all the time, we just need to get our butt to bed.
If you’re ready for real-life conversation with a cartoon sheep, Shleep (free for iOS and Android ) can help you figure out which sleeping habits are not right for you and give you small, digestible lessons to help you get better. The company’s bread and butter seems like a slightly dystopian corporate decision (sleep is the “core of maximum productivity,” so you should watch your employees sleep, ick), but the app itself is free and not overly intrusive.
Once you install it, you fill out a little quiz that asks how long you sleep on weekdays and weekends, if you procrastinate, if you feel tired during the day, and if you use your phone in bed. (The questions get more detailed, but these are the main areas.) Then you get an assessment and a set of short video tutorials to explain why and how you should correct one of your bad habits.
By the way, you get the challenge no matter how good your score is. I answered questions to get the highest score and was told that I had to work on “relaxing.” But I also have the opportunity to browse other sets of lessons: wean myself off the snooze button, avoid getting sleep deprived, and getting electronic devices out of the bedroom.
The app wants to take you every day, several times a day, to ask how you sleep and to remind you of the modes that you may have promised to do before bed. But notifications are easy to disable or customize, so I won’t blame them too much. If the app helps you to go to bed on time, you will feel better in the long run.