Sleep Cycle Power Nap (iOS only),
around £1.50
Uses your iPhone’s accelerometer to work
out when you fall asleep, and sets a timer
for a 20 or 90 minute nap. The app also has
varvariouiousss sounoundsds thathatat aimim toto aidaidrerelaxlaxatiationon toto
help you fall asleep.
Pzizz (iOS or Android), free, premium
version around £4/month
UUserrs cann sett a titimmerrffortr thheiirdr desiirdred
sleep session length, and the app plays a
soothing “dreamscape” (a combination
of music, binaural beats, voiceovers and
sound effects) while you snooze, before
wakkiingyou up withithanallarm. TThhe app
uses an algorithm to generate a slightly
different version of these dreamscapes with
eaceachuh use,se,alalthothoughughththese sounoundsds arearesisimilmilarar
enough to engender associations between
sleep and the sounds to aid relaxation. The
premium version offers a choice of different
sounds and other advanced features.
Slumber (iOS only), free for 10 episodes;
around £30/year for full access
Slumber combines various techniquqes
looking to help users fall asleep, such as
guided meditations and bedtime stories.
Users can select background noises such
asas rairainon orsr seaea sousoundsndsththatat plaplayfy foror upup toto 1010
hours after the main track has finished.
Awoken (Android only), free
Awoken looks to help users achieve
lucid dreaming (in which you’re aware
you’re dreaming, but aren’t fully awake,
withh ddreamers offten ablble to guided thheir
narrative, setting and characters) through
a journalling tool and practice exercises to
enhhance users’ ’awarenessoffthheiri ddreams
and ultimately turn them into lucid ones.
Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock
(iOS or Android), free
This alarm clock records your sleep
patterns by noting your movements and
calculates your sleep cycles accordingly.
Users set a time window, and the app’s
algorithms then ensure it wakes you during
a light sleep phase, to start the day feeling
optimally refreshed.
Five great
sleep apps
either.” Many of the images and texts
for the show were written late at night
when George couldn’t sleep, “but a lot
of it was also composed in the studio in
the clear light of day, which was a really
healthy process – an exorcism of sorts- making my sleeplessness
less of a lonely battle, and
less agonisingly private.”
Speaking to us in 2020,
he says that since both
changing his practice (he’s
now studying his fine art
MA) and having drastically
improved his sleep, he
would be very unlikely
to make such personal
work again. “Back then, I ended up
making so much work throughout the
night. But I think that now, if I had a
physiological problem I wouldn’t tackle
it by making art. Three years ago,
I would intellectualise the problem or
try and express or understand it better
creatively. The work I make now is less
personal: I can step out of myself and
be confused about the world around
me, rather than expressing what I’m
confused about within me. But when
you have it, insomnia is just so all-
consuming, you can’t really ignore it.”
DON’T FIGHT INSOMNIA,
JUST “ROLL WITH IT”
In a work diary piece published on The
New York Times site in January this
year, Jessica Walsh admitted to bouts
of insomnia, although from what
she writes this seems to be mostly
attributed to her having drunk 10 cups
of tea in a day that weren’t caffeine-
free, as she’d thought, on top of four
cups of coffee that morning.
She wrote that while she “used to
get stressed about insomnia”, she’s
now found it best just to “roll with it”,
and uses the time she spends awake at
night “looking at real estate listings for
our new studio space” and scrolling
Instagram for news, keeping up to date
on artists and activists she follows and
sometimes looking for new talent for&Walsh, the New York City studio that
she founded last year.
Indeed, those affected by longer-
term sleep trouble often seem to find
a sort of acceptance in it. Illustrator
and animator Steve May, who’s worked
for the likes of The Beano,
Harper Collins, Faber &
Faber, The Guardian and
The Economist, has had
trouble sleeping for as long
as he can remember, with
varying levels of severity. His
usual night’s sleep is broken
into chunks of no more than
two hours before he wakes
again; Steve manages about
six hours in total of sleep broken into
those smaller chunks.
This might explain the odd, often
rather hilarious dreams he has –
since it would make sense with these
patterns that most of his sleep occurs
during the REM or dreaming phase.
Recent highlights include attempting
to scan salami slices (for illustration
texture, although they were too greasy
and his attempts were thwarted), an
argument with David Bowie involving
a sandwich, and one dream featuring a
lot of people with “ridiculous Baroque
eyebrows’”. As well as being excellentGraphic designer and art director Jessica Walsh.Illustrator Steve May.