Meet Wave: The App That Trains Your Brain to Sleep Better

You are not the only one if the past year has found you struggling to maintain a regular sleep schedule. The majority of us have been under significantly greater stress than we are accustomed to, and nothing is more disruptive to a restful night’s sleep than tension, anxiety, and overall unease about the state the world is in. Wave Sleep is an app that was created by Mason Levey and Brad Warsh with the intention of assisting you in reestablishing healthy sleeping patterns. Wave Sleep intends to assist coach you to a better, more peaceful sleep by utilizing a combination of relaxation techniques and live sessions that are similar to a very mellow version of Instagram live. We reached out to the app’s creators to get more information about how it functions.

The Workings of It

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has trouble falling asleep that a number of everyday things might mess with your normal sleep schedule. Alcohol, coffee, eating immediately before bed, a room that is not dark, scrolling social media or your phone constantly before bed, and going to bed at different times each night are all factors that might lead to restless nights, according to the creators of the company.

You have the option of booking a live session in advance, which will allow you to hold yourself accountable and actually get to bed at the same time every night. “This promotes accountability for bedtime, and our aim is to help clients build good nighttime habits and routines,” they add. “Our mission is to help customers create healthy evening habits and routines.”

You will find a variety of sleep recommendations and situations to help you sleep whenever you log into a session, regardless of whether it is live or on-demand. You can drift off to sleep while swinging in a hammock, on the Amalfi Coast, or if those options don’t pique your attention, you can fall asleep dressed as your favorite animal or in your preferred hangout from before the pandemic.

You may anticipate that, throughout each session, you will be led by guides through a variety of methods that will assist you in relaxing, such as a guided meditation. According to the company’s founders, “Our combination of breathing exercises, body scans, and visualizations are great for reducing stress and anxiety as well as reducing tension in the body, therefore inducing muscle relaxation.” “Visualizations are also great in that they help you take your mind off anything stressful and can mentally prepare you for better sleep,” the founders continue. “Our combination of breathing exercises, body scans, and visualizations are great for reducing stress and anxiety as well as reducing tension in the body

Additionally, music might play a significant part in assisting you in dozing asleep. As the sleep guides lead you through each session, you may have noticed that soft music is playing in the background. According to Matthew Wong, who serves as the director of music, this is a combination of sounds. He explains that “We use a technique called Brainwave Entrainment so that, after listening to the music and sounds for some time, the brain will begin to match the frequencies and waves of the tunes.” Brainwave entrainment is a technique that “we use to ensure that the brain begins to match the frequencies and waves of the tunes.” “The tones, winds, and other elements that we use are put together into a musical wave and tuned in such a way that it mimics the waves that appear in REM sleep, therefore inducing relaxation and allowing us to fall into a deeper sleep, faster.” “The waves that we use are tuned in such a way that they mimic the waves that appear in REM sleep.”

A Critical Analysis of the Wave Sleep App

My historically poor sleeping patterns haven’t improved one bit since the pandemic first started, and if anything, they’ve gotten even worse. Melatonin is the only thing that has been able to bring me back on track with my routine. There are instances when even melatonin isn’t effective, and I still can’t fall or stay asleep no matter what. When I can’t sleep, it seems almost counter-intuitive to take my phone and start doom-scrolling or opening up TikTok, but instead of doing such things, I pulled up the WAVE app and chose a session to listen to.

The functionality of the app itself is rather intuitive, and it is noticeably less cluttered and distracting than any social media app. In addition to that, it is set to dark mode, which means you won’t have to strain your eyes to see or scramble to adjust the light down. One of their many sleep guides with a soothing voice, Marcellus, led me through the “Fall Asleep in the Rainforest” session that I used for my first experience. I have a hard time turning off my head at night, but I discovered that during these sessions, while I was concentrating so hard on picturing, I was too preoccupied to engage in excessive thinking. Almost exactly halfway through the workout, I came dangerously close to dozing off. In spite of the fact that my schedule was somewhat more stable throughout the course of the week, I continued to watch the on-demand sessions rather than the live sessions. Getting to bed at a more reasonable hour is something I’m still working on, but one thing I really like about this app is how quickly it helps me quiet my mind.

You can get the app from the app store and install it on your device. The app will remain free until March 12; beyond that date, a monthly subscription will cost $10.