Sleep is essential for health and often the most overlooked or least prioritised component when trying to lose weight or reduce stress. There are so many influences in modern life that are stopping us nodding off or getting to bed early. It's tempting to use your smartphone before bed, but the light emitted and the thought processes of trying to communicate with friends & family just before you nod off, can keep you awake mulling over a conversation.

If you struggle to get enough sleep, the impact on your body can be huge, preventing us from performing both mentally and physically at our best. Lack of sleep will also contribute to us looking older, makes us fatigued, reduces motivation, makes you feel more anxious which, in turn, can stop you getting off to sleep.

When you are ready to go to sleep, start the Sleep++ app. This is a specialist app which works in conjunction with your Apple Watch, to monitor your sleep behaviour through the night.

Within the app, the bottom of the screen will show data from your latest measured sleep. At the top of the screen, press the "Start Sleeping" button and the Sleep++ app will gather all your health data from your Apple Watch and determine the quality and length of your night sleep. The app will then analyse your sleep and will show you when you nodded off and when you woke up (and may not have even realised). It will also show you deeper/REM sleep where our bodies are effectively paralyzed and thus there won’t be any movement at all and is the time when your body is recovering from the day before. 

Once you’ve woken up, the app will show you the summary of your night's sleep with an easy-to-digest summary of the time you went to sleep, summarised with the total sleep time, time in restful sleep and time in ‘restless’ sleep. The app will also offer a sleep goal which means that you will be able to set the amount of sleep you’d like each night and then you will be reminded you are getting the right amount of sleep you specified with a green tint summary, or a red tint if you didn’t meet your sleep goals.

 Sleep ++ will also set reminders for you when it is time to get sleep, so in case you get in to some heavy reading or in most people’s case some heavy/binge watching of TV you’ll be alerted that if you want to keep up with your good sleep and health you should really be headed towards bed.