sleep

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on sleep:

Unwind with streaming content designed to calm your mind

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Restflix
Get unlimited access to video and music that will put an end to sleeplessness and anxiety.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

More than ever, it’s easy to carry stress throughout the day and into the night. Research shows that sleep quality is one of the most important indicators of overall health. And if you want a reliable way to feel your best, it’s getting a good night’s sleep.

This streaming service, loaded with content designed to calm your mind, will take you to the Land of Zzzzs …

This app uses a scientifically tested method to get you sleeping in two minutes [Deals]

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Restly Sleep App
Fall into deep sleep in just 2 minutes with this app's voice guidance with calming background sounds.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

If you’re having trouble sleeping these days, you’re not alone. Stress is high, schedules are screwy, and the future is uncertain — but a good night’s sleep is as important as ever. Plenty of us are staring at our phones instead of sacking out, but now your phone can actually help get much-needed Zzs.

How to use Apple Watch’s fantastic nightstand mode

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Zzzzzz. The Apple Watch's nightstand mode even has snooze.
Zzzzzz. The Apple Watch's nightstand mode even has snooze.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Have you heard of the Apple Watch’s nightstand mode? I knew about it from digging through the settings in the iPhone Watch app, but I never tried it out. I wear my watch while sleeping, mostly so I get a nice haptic alarm in the morning instead of an audible iPhone alarm. But if you charge your watch overnight, you should almost certainly be using nightstand mode, aka bedside mode.

Two great sleep-tracker apps for Apple Watch

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apple watch sleep tracking
Zzzzzz!
Photo: Danny G/Unsplash

The new Apple Watch series 5, running watchOS 6, can track just about any kind of activity. But one thing it doesn’t track is your sleep. Or at least, it doesn’t offer sleep-tracking in a native form. That’s left to third-party app makers. Today we’ll see two great apps to do just that. One is ultra-simple, and the other is super deep. Let’s take a look.

Boost privacy of Apple Watch Series 5’s always-on face

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apple watch series 5 sleep
When dimmed, the Series 5 can be set to hide sensitive information.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The one huge new feature in the Apple Watch Series 5 is the always-on display. Day or night, the screen never shuts off. It dims as soon as you stop using it, and all animations stop, but the face stands ready for your curious glance at any time.

However, if you wear your Apple Watch in bed, or you don’t like the idea of the watch showing your info to anybody who cares to look at the device, then there are a few settings that can help. Let’s take a look.

Everything you need to know about Bedtime for iPhone

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Bedtime tells you when to go to sleep, and when to wake up again.
Bedtime tells you when to go to sleep, and when to wake up again.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

If you’re still using your iPhone’s alarm clock to wake you up in the mornings, you’re about to be amazed at how awesome waking up can become. Right there inside the Clock app is a Bedtime tab, which will make using olde-timey iPhone alarms seem like carrying a wind-up travel alarm clock with you on a business trip.

Not only does Bedtime wake you up with soothing sounds, it also tracks your sleep. It even reminds you when it’s time for bed! Let’s check out what it does and how to use it.

How to create a sleep playlist for your HomePod

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Siri speaker
Look into my eye. You are feeling sleepy…
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

This tip is less of a how-to, and more of a why-to. Did you ever think about creating a sleep playlist for your HomePod? It’s a great idea for a few reasons.

  • You can control the HomePod with your voice, from your bed.
  • The HomePod is silent when it’s not playing back audio, so you don’t have to turn it off or listen to it hiss.

Let’s see how it’s done.

iPhone to blame for insomniac teenagers

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iPhone dark
Is your iPhone keeping you awake at night?
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

iPhone-turns-10Have a teenager who’s always wide-awake at night? Blame their iPhone.

One sleep researcher says that smartphone addiction is proving an additional delay to sleep onset, meaning some kids are only getting six hours of sleep a night. The result is chronic tiredness and poor school performance.

Apple acquires sleep-tracking startup Beddit

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Screen Shot 2017-05-10 at 12.00.06
That's a mission statement that could have been written by Apple.
Photo: Beddit

Apple has acquired acquired a sleep-tracking app called Beddit, suggesting that tracking users’ hours of shut-eye could be incorporated into a future Apple Watch or iPhone.

Financial terms of the acquisition haven’t been disclosed, although the buyout is confirmed by Beddit in the small print on its webpage.

New Apple videos reveal the glories of iPhone 7, Apple Watch and more

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iOS 10 camera iPhone 7 Plus
The iPhone 7 looks absolutely amazing.
Photo: Apple

Apple has posted the video of today’s surprising iPhone 7 keynote on its website, but if you’d rather just hit the highlights, you can now watch the ten new short videos and ads the company created.

The iPhone 7, AirPods, Apple Watch 2 and Apple Health all get serious screen time in Apple’s latest videos. The company even made a 107-second recap video summing up all the new features:

Watch them all below:

How to restart (or just ‘sleep’) your Apple TV

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Reboot your Apple TV with style.
Reboot your Apple TV with style.
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac

Is your Apple TV glitching out in some way? While I’ve not personally seen any weirdness with the rock-solid OS that comes with the Apple TV, it’s possible that you might have.

As most of us know, rebooting our Mac or restarting our iOS devices can save us from all sorts of odd behaviors; the same could be said of Apple TV. Here’s how to restart that little black box of joy, plus an easy way to get it into low-power sleep mode.

Sleep machine promises a good SNOOZ

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The makers of the SNOOZ white noise machine vow to turn your bedroom into a
The makers of the SNOOZ white noise machine vow to turn your bedroom into a "haven for sleep."
Photo: SNOOZ

Maybe the problem with your sleep is the noise. You actually might need a little.

A startup called SNOOZ has developed a white noise machine based on the premise that quiet rooms make our hearing acuter. The breeze-like sound coming from its machine will provide a gentle buffer between you and sudden startling sounds.

Avoid the snooze button with Withings’ Aura smart sleep system

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Withings_Aura_relax

This post is brought to you by Withings, creator of the Withings Aura smart sleep system.

Every morning when you wake up, do you hit the snooze button? You’re not the only one. According to a Withings sleep survey, over half Americans do. And even more Brits. A lot of people even think about smashing their alarm.

A lack of overall sleep and an abrupt awakening when your alarm clock or smartphone goes off in the morning are causing a lot of people to feel tired and unrested throughout the day, affecting their well-being and productivity.

Most people would prefer not to wake up to the sound of a loud noise, and rather let their internal body clock pull them out of sleep naturally in the morning. Now French connected health company Withings has developed the Aura, a cleverly designed sleep system that is set to provide a smooth wake-up experience and put an end to the snooze button.

Beddit, A Permanent Sleep Tracker That Stays In Bed

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beddit-sleep-tracking-device-xl

 

The last thing I want to do as I stumble into my bed through a bourbon-soaked fog is to set up my sleep-tracking device. It’s nice to have an app tell me how fitful is my kip, but the pre-sleep perambulations are a pain: you have to slip your Fitbit into a wrist strap, or plug in your iPhone and launch the sleep-tracking app.

Beddit takes a different approach. It’s a strap that stays permanently wrapped around your mattress, ready to record your snoozes.

Snorelab For iOS Will Help Your Solve Your Snoring Problem Once And For All

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https://youtu.be/2Azoteu5nzs

I am a snorer. This should not be taken to mean that I make soft, puppy-like growling sounds in the back of my throat as I sleep. In fact, if you happened to hold that puppy up within six inches of my face while I sawed logs, it is likely that all of the flesh, fur and musculature of that baby dog would be vortexed off its skeleton only to become lodged in the yawning chasms of my throat and nostrils. My snore is the sound of the Seventh Seal being opened, or the universe tearing itself asunder. In all probability? You have never heard anything like me.

So imagine my poor girlfriend, who sleeps next to me every night as the bed vibrates, the house shakes and the ceiling buckles with my snoring. As you might well imagine, she’s eager for me to do something about my snoring.

And what do you know? There’s a new app for just that. It’s called Snorelab.

Wimoweh Lets You Manage Your Mac’s Sleep More Effectively [OS X Tips]

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Wimoweh

We’ve provided a couple of tips to help you prevent your Mac from going to sleep when you don’t want to, from a time-based app called Sleep No More to some Terminal magic that can do something similar. Unfortunately, both solutions are based on time. What if you want to keep your Mac from sleeping while it’s running a specific app, no matter how long it takes?

Free Mac app, Wimoweh, may be your answer. Check it out.

Safely Restart, Sleep, Or Shut Down Your Mac From The Power Button Dialog Using The Keyboard [OS X Tips]

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MacBook-Air-backlit-keyboard.jpg

We showed you a handful of fantastic, instant keyboard shortcuts to shut down, reboot, or sleep your Mac, but an even safer way is to bring up the Power button dialog box that happens when you hit the, well, Power button on your Mac. That’s the one in the upper right corner of the keyboard on most modern Macs, while some older Macs have it as a separate button integrated into the body of the Mac itself.

Either way, hit that Power button and then you can use the following keyboard shortcuts to activate the different options in the dialog.

Just What Does Power Nap Do While Your Mac Is Sleeping?

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We showed you how to switch on Power Nap on your Mountain Lion-running, SSD-equipped Mac, but just what does this new feature do?

We know that you Mac enters a kind of robotic REM sleep, where it’s brain activity spikes and the network connections power up to download various bits of data, just like Newsstand on iOS. But a new Apple Knowledge Base article outlines the surprising number of tasks which are going on under the sleepy-lidded hood.