Today's technology can help us keep better track of our health. Smart phone apps can count calories, log the number of miles we run, and even help us sleep better.

Sleep Apps that Track Your Sleep

Sleep apps have been designed to provide white noise and peaceful nature sounds, to help you remember your dreams, and guide you through stress-relief exercises, but sleep tracker apps, which provide you with detailed information about your entire night's sleep, are the most popular.

Uli Gal-Oz, CEO of the company that created Sleep Rate, a sleep tracker app, said its purpose is to help the user make behavioral changes that will result in a better quality of sleep.

He said the app works by capturing data from a heart rate monitor and your iPhone's microphone to monitor your quality of sleep. In the morning the app sends the data to Stanford University for analysis, after which you receive a personalized report with recommendations about improving your slumber.

Ultimately, Gal-Oz said, the goal is to identify the problem areas of your sleep cycle, such as waking up due to snoring or staying awake past bedtime because of stress, and help you resolve those issues.

Like Sleep Rate, other sleep apps, such as Sleep as Android, Sleep Cycle and Sleep Bot create an electronic journal of your sleep rhythms and provide a gentle alarm designed to wake you at an appropriate time during your sleep cycle. Mattress Firm knows there are many products in the marketplace that aim to help you track your sleep.

What's the Benefit?

Some of the benefits in using sleep tracking apps include:

• If you have sleep problems that require collecting data about your slumber habits, you can avoid spending the night in a sleep lab. The traditional approach to collecting data about sleep habits, called polysomnography, involves the subject sleeping in a clinic hooked up to data collection machines. While the data collected in this manner is highly detailed, the data collected by a sleep tracking app about one metric – movement – is also quite accurate and allows the subject to sleep more comfortably in familiar surroundings. A sleep specialist can then use the data collected by an app to help assess a patient's sleep issues.
• Apps keep an automated and very accurate sleep journal for you. Keeping a sleep diary is an important way to gather information about insomnia and other sleep related problems, according to the National Sleep Foundation. But it takes a high level of commitment to record the necessary information every morning. Many people find it more convenient to use a sleep journal created by an app.
• Most sleep tracker apps have a smart alarm that rouses you when your sleep is the lightest. By getting up when your body is ready rather than being jolted awake from a deep slumber, you can avoid feeling groggy and grumpy during the first hour you're up.

Getting good quality sleep is an important part of your health regimen. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declared that insufficient sleep is a public health epidemic and that chronic sleep deprivation contributes to illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity and depression. If you have difficulty falling or staying asleep, using a sleep tracker app may help you pinpoint the cause of your insomnia, but if your sleep problems continue, it's best to seek the advice of your physician.

Another way to help ensure you get the quality rest you need is to sleep on a comfortable mattress that provides proper support for your body. Come in to a Mattress Firm location today to find a product that is best for you.