Sleep tracking can help you learn a great deal about yourself and your sleep, from the quality of your sleep to how your breathing is affected by disturbances. Collecting sleep data can also help you figure out if you’re getting enough rest and maybe even correct your sleep problems.

While using an Apple Watch or other fitness tracking devices is the best way to get accurate details about your sleep quality, you can bring sleep goals within reach by using a few good iPhone apps. Here’s all you need to know.

Sleep Tracking Without an Apple Watch

If you don’tuse an Apple Watch(or other trackers), it can be challenging to track and analyze sleep quality, REM sleep, respiratory rate while sleeping, etc., which makes it difficult to get a good picture of your sleep health. Your iPhone’s Health app has a Sleep feature that tracks everything from your sleep schedule to your deep sleep or REM window (which can be entered manually). You can also use Sleep to set daily notifications reminding you about your bedtime, set a wake-up time, and add an alarm. These features are, of course, made better with a fitness tracker that gives you accurate insights into your sleep data.

However, you may still use a few iPhone features to prepare a better sleep environment, fromFocus ModetoJournalto jot down sleep notes. You can also use third-party sleep trackers to note your sleep goals and schedule, or find your daily energy levels to time power naps (Riseis a good app to use for this purpose).

These seven sleep apps have elevated my sleep quality with their offerings of sleep sounds and stories, music, and tracking tools that don’t require a fitness tracker.

1Loóna

Loónais a stress-relief sleep app that provides a library of sleep music and stories to help you calm your mind before hitting the sack. After you customize the app’s color palette, themes, narratives, and music, Loóna launches an immersive interface filled with stories, relaxing lo-fi music, virtual coloring chapters, and short escapes for every mood. The sleep app includes colorful 3D animation for coloring chapters (which include some of the best virtual coloring characters I’ve seen) and pretty relaxing voice styles for all stories.

Loóna has a good collection of “Stories,” a library of sleep tools where you can choose personalized bedtime stories that range from five to 25+ minutes. The app’s “Escapes” is my favorite feature, with custom coloring options for your wind-down routine. Music on the app includes lullabies, wake-up sounds, and calm sounds.

you may set an alarm in the app and view every coloring chapter, story, and song you’ve visited in the past. Apart from these core features, Loóna checks your mood and sleep quality every day you open the app, which tunes suggestions. You can track your sleep streak and mindful minutes as well. A Plus subscription ($12.99/month or $39.99/year) gives you unlimited access to all Escapes, Stories, and music.

2Sleepiest

Sleepiestis a sleep meditation app with an impressive collection of sleep sounds, podcasts, and stories. It is suited for both adults and children, and is well-suited for family use. Sleepiest’s library features 200+ meditation guides, 350+ bedtime stories, and 150+ ambient sleep sounds, as well as podcasts, playlists, learning audio about sleep, and kid-friendly audio and stories. For users coping with stress, the app also features breathing and meditation guides to reduce anxiety.

The app’s interface design is vivid and colorful, but stays uncluttered and easy to navigate due to its neat categorization of sleep tools. you may edit in-app widgets to make your app interface look the way you want. One notable feature that Sleepiest offers is its Mixer, which lets you create sleep sounds from scratch by customizing beats, moods, and the sleep timer.

The app is a gamified sleeping experience, featuring sleep quests and rewards that you collect as you explore the library and try new tools. The Sleepiest+ subscription ($9.99/month or $49.99/year) lets you unlock everything in the app’s library, access premium content, and use the AI Sleep Assistant.

3ShutEye

If you want to improve the quality of your sleep or deal with sleep-related problems,ShutEyeis a comprehensive sleep tracker to try. Besides its collection of ambient sounds and “color” noises (white noise, green noise, etc.), ShutEye offers a sleep tracker that keeps an ear on any snoring or sleep-talking issues you may be facing. ShutEye (with permission, of course) tracks your sleep disturbances and gives you insights into your breathing health during sleep.

You can monitor your sleep recordings after the app tracks a night of sleep. ShutEye can be connected to Apple Health to track your resting heart rate, blood oxygen, and other sleeping vitals. The app offers detailed guides about insomnia, snoring, and hypersomnia, with relaxing stories, soundscapes, and ASMR videos available for relaxation as part of your wind-down process.

With an Elite subscription ($9.99/month or $59.99/year), you can access ShutEye’s personalized program, which provides a personalized plan with sleep analysis tools to battle sleep-related disorders.

4ASMR DJ

I’ve always been a big fan of ASMR and the satisfying videos that flooded everybody’s YouTube algorithm between 2015 and 2017. But beyond the brain-itching satisfaction, ASMR videos can also be used as a tool for a relaxing night of sleep.ASMR DJis an app designed for sleep-related ASMR sounds and videos, featuring 150+ sounds and immersive worlds.

The app lets you loop any ASMR YouTube video of your choice, use a sound mixer to personalize sleep sounds, and set a sleep timer for everything you play. The mixer features pre-recorded ASMR sound bites (river, shaking jar, positive affirmations, bonfire, and so on).

ASMR DJ can be used offline and plays sounds even when your phone is locked. The app is free to use with no ads, and offers an affordable premium subscription ($1.99/month) for unlimited access to all ASMR sounds on the app.

you’re able to also find ASMR videos and playlists on streaming platforms like YouTube and Spotify (a personal favorite is Spotify’s personalized Goodnight and Sleep Mixes, which feature songs from your radar).

5Sleep Cycle

Sleep Cycleis a sleep tracker and information app best suited for those who want to learn more about curbing sleep issues. Like ShutEye, Sleep Cycle uses built-in features to track your sleep quality (through microphone access) and set goals to improve sleep. The app has a journal feature that gives you insights into your sleep stages and quality based on audio collected (including disturbances), with graphs and a calendar view.

You can write down sleep notes every day, and check your time in bed and time asleep over a few days of tracking. Sleep Cycle offers programs that feature guides to common sleeping issues. The app shows coughing levels in your area through a local heat map to prepare yourself for any illness, sounds for sleep, and a gentle alarm.

Sleep Cycle can be connected to your Apple Watch and the Health app. A Premium subscription lets you access SleepGPT, online backup, HomeKit integration, and more.

6Dreams

No good sleep routine is complete without a good journal to help you take some time for yourself during wind-down time. If you’re looking to commit to a proper sleep routine with minimal disturbances, you can try a dream journal likeDreamsto track, draw, and jot down your late-night thoughts. This personal dream diary lets you take detailed notes about your dreams, note down relevant dream signs, and read through past entries.

An interesting feature about the signs in Dreams is that they are categorized and filtered (into categories like action, character, city, object, and feeling), so you can note patterns in your dreams. The app also has a Reading Mode, which sorts and displays your entries and signs. You can favorite certain dreams, add a lock to entries, and note dream types (nightmare, lucid dream, sleep paralysis, and more). As for stats, the app analyses nights with dreams, how many dreams you have per night, best dream months, and sleep quality. You can also attach pictures or draw objects to a dream journal entry for better tracking.

Your Dreams journal can be synced to iCloud, and the app can be connected to the Health app for sleep information. A Pro subscription (one-time payment of $13.99) lets you use calendar view, link related dreams, generate auto signs for dreams, and view advanced stats.

7Calm

Calmis one of the best meditation apps out there, and when it comes to sleep, the app’s catalog of sleep stories and meditation guides does not disappoint. This App of the Year award-winner features a dedicated Sleep tab for your bedtime routine. You can scroll through a long list of bedtime stories, journeys, playlists, nature stories, nap narrations, and more. Calm’s collection of 100+ sleep stories is narrated by well-known celebrity voices. You can also listen to calming, stress-relieving ambient music and learn better meditation practices from experts.

Apart from third-party sleep apps, an iPhone app that helps me prepare better for bedtime isShortcuts, specifically custom actions, that can be wired to reduce distractions, set a relaxing mood, andminimize screen timebefore I go to sleep.