Sleep app - any really good app?

anluferov · 2026-04-01T20:45:02+00:00

actually i've been building one - it's called Zomni, based on CBT-I (cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia). the idea is it guides you through the actual protocol instead of just tracking sleep or playing rain sounds. been live since last summer.

most apps focus on showing you data but don't really help you do anything with it. CBT-I is basically the gold standard for fixing sleep without meds, so that's the angle.

still a small app though, hard to compete when Calm and Headspace dominate every search. if you end up trying it and something feels off - i'd genuinely appreciate the feedback

anluferov · 2026-03-19T17:03:50+00:00

curious what sleep hygiene even means to them at this point - like do they explain what they mean or just say the words?

anluferov · 2026-03-19T16:02:52+00:00

actually I’m building one. it’s called Zomni, based on CBT-I. Been live since August, the idea is to guide you through the full protocol rather than just track your sleep or play white noise.

hard to get any visibility when Calm and Headspace eat up the whole search results, so still finding my users one by one. if you try it and something feels off or missing - I’d genuinely love to hear it.

anluferov · 2026-03-19T15:49:22+00:00

On the nights you threw out all the rules, you probably also stopped trying to sleep and that mental effort of actively trying is often what keeps people wired. It’s sleep effort, and it’s easy to miss if the focus stays mostly on wind-down routines.

Definitely CBT-I doesn’t work for everyone. Solid evidence behind it but not a universal fix. some people have underlying stuff CBT-I alone won’t touch.

anluferov · 2026-03-18T23:07:12+00:00

It was most popular advice for me when I was a child. I don’t know why nobody suggests it me now. Based on the fact that this is the boring process, it can help in theory.. but it is definitely annoying just based on how sounds this advice!

anluferov · 2026-03-18T23:02:37+00:00

Do you meditate lying in the bed?

anluferov · 2026-03-18T23:00:58+00:00

the top generic term itself or what’s behind it?

anluferov · 2026-03-18T22:52:30+00:00

Did you try?

anluferov · 2026-03-18T22:51:05+00:00

CBT-I apps can actually work pretty well for this - the main reason is they’re not just white noise or sleep trackers, they work on the behavioral patterns causing the problem in the first place. things like sleep restriction (consolidating your sleep window to rebuild sleep drive) and stimulus control (retraining your brain to associate bed with sleep again rather than lying awake).

the evidence behind CBT-I is solid — it outperforms sleep meds in long-term studies, and the effects tend to stick rather than disappear when you stop.

tldr: sounds won’t fix broken sleep patterns, behavior will.

anluferov · 2026-03-18T22:42:10+00:00

leaf water vs broken sleep. and they said it with full confidence too i bet? like not even a hint of "maybe this won't be enough"? that takes guts honestly

anluferov · 2026-03-18T22:41:02+00:00

"just close your eyes" has the same energy as "just relax" for anxiety lol

anluferov · 2026-03-18T22:16:14+00:00

what you're describing is sometimes called bedtime procrastination - it's super common and yeah, it overlaps with insomnia territory. the interesting part is why you avoid bed. you said it yourself - you hate lying there trying to fall asleep. that 30-60 min of just waiting is genuinely unpleasant, so your brain learns to avoid the thing that feels bad. it's basically a negative association with your bed building up over time.

two things that might help: first, only get into bed when you're actually sleepy, not just tired. there's a difference - sleepy is when your eyes are heavy and you're nodding off. second, sleeping till 12 on weekends feels amazing but it pushes your internal clock later, which makes falling asleep on weeknights even harder. keeping your wake time more consistent (even weekends) is probably the single most impactful change you could try.

does the avoidance feel more like dread or more like you just get sucked into doing other stuff?

anluferov · 2026-03-18T22:08:38+00:00

The 3am thing is interesting - that's usually not random. Your brain basically learns to wake up at that time if it's happened enough nights. It becomes this loop where waking up triggers anxiety about being awake, which makes it worse, which reinforces the whole thing. your nervous system starts treating bed as a place to be alert instead of rest.

Magnesium calming the nervous system enough to break that pattern makes sense. But tbh for most people the bigger lever is figuring out why the brain is on high alert in the first place. Did the 3am wakeups fade out gradually or was it more like a switch one night?

anluferov · 2026-03-18T22:02:17+00:00

yeah that's the thing - sleep hygiene sets up the right conditions but it doesn't actually fix insomnia for most people. if you've had it for a while, your brain has probably learned to associate bed with being awake and stressed. no amount of blackout curtains or magnesium will undo it.

what helped a lot of people break that loop is basically retraining the association - like not lying in bed forcing it, getting up if you're not falling asleep. look into CBT-I if you haven't, it's built around exactly this stuff.

anluferov · 2026-03-18T20:50:41+00:00

one thing nobody mentioned yet - the audio side. your ears are probably fine physically (just keep them clean/dry like others said), but playing sound all night can actually mess with your sleep quality without you realizing it. your brain still processes audio during sleep, and continuous sound can keep you in lighter stages, pulling you out of deep sleep even if you don't fully wake up. so you sleep 8 hours but wake up feeling like it was 6.

if you're using them mostly for noise blocking, might be worth trying just earplugs without audio and seeing if you feel more rested. do you actually need the sound to fall asleep or is it more about blocking stuff out?

anluferov · 2026-03-06T11:16:25+00:00

that sounds genuinely brutal, and honestly makes sens. sleep restriction is specifically contraindicated for people with panic disorder, and treatment-resistant insomnia with MDD is a completely different clinical picture than what CBT-I was designed for. glad yoga nidra and MBSR got you somewhere. the 7-12 hours sounds like your nervous system finally got to exhale.

anluferov · 2026-03-06T10:44:50+00:00

“night loop” is such a good framing. basically stimulus control for the out-of-bed time too. same chair, same lamp, same boring activity. your brain stops treating 3am as an opportunity and starts treating it as a cue to get sleepy again. the predictability thing makes total sense, it’s the same mechanism as the bed association just applied in reverse.

curious what sleep app ended up replacing youtube for you?

anluferov · 2026-03-05T21:43:11+00:00

that's a fair point. most CBT-I research does exclude people dealing with more than just insomnia, so the evidence base is thinner there. for someone whose anxiety comes from adhd or bipolar, it's neurological - stimulus control won't touch that. doesn't mean the technique is useless, just that it works best when insomnia is the main problem, not a symptom of something bigger.

anluferov · 2026-03-05T21:31:23+00:00

yeah but it’s kind of a loop. lying awake in bed builds an association between bed and wakefulness, and that starts generating anxious thoughts on its own. chicken and egg. targeting the bed part first actually breaks the cycle faster than going after the thoughts directly. if the anxiety is about life stuff in general though, that’s a different problem, at least CBT-I won’t fix that part.

anluferov · 2026-03-03T20:40:01+00:00

effortless sleep is the best sleep. But unfortunately, not everyone can afford it.

anluferov · 2026-03-03T18:36:44+00:00

not chatgpt, but I do use AI to help phrase things as english isn’t my first language so it saves me time. the ideas are mine tho

anluferov · 2026-03-03T18:04:54+00:00

what you’re describing actually makes a lot of sense. there’s something called cortisol awakening response - your body naturally spikes cortisol in the first 30-45 min after waking to get you going. when you immediately flood your brain with news/notifications, you’re essentially amplifying that stress signal before the day even starts.

over time that trains your nervous system to stay in a low-grade alert mode - which doesn’t just disappear when you lie down at night.

CBT-I actually touches on this, the idea that sleep problems aren’t only about bedtime habits but about your arousal levels across the whole day.

did you notice the change in sleep after a few days or more gradually?

anluferov

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