{"id":278018,"date":"2026-02-11T03:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T03:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/278018\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T03:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T03:38:12","slug":"my-phone-is-officially-a-sleep-coach-and-im-finally-getting-8-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/278018\/","title":{"rendered":"My phone is officially a sleep coach, and I’m finally getting 8 hours"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since December, I’ve had a new high level of insomnia. It normally takes me a few hours to fall asleep, but now it takes me twice as long.<\/p>\n

I’m a massive believer in bedtime mode and usually set strict limits to prevent myself from scrolling on my phone, but even now, I have broken my own rules.<\/p>\n

I started sleeping with another phone again, one that is a bit more devoid of apps, but has enough on it that I can still access some emergency meditation features.<\/p>\n

I decided to try something more tactful to help me sleep better. I turned my Google Pixel<\/a> into a sleep coach \u2014 it is surprisingly working.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t3 Google Home automations that improved my sleep
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

A good night’s rest is just a few automations away<\/p>\n

I unlocked the full potential of bedtime mode<\/p>\n

I calibrated my Clock app properly with bedtime mode<\/p>\n

\"The
\n Credit:\u00a0Lucas Gouveia \/ Android Police<\/p>\n

Putting bedtime mode on my Samsung Galaxy and OnePlus worked like a charm a year ago.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t stand the grey-scale mode when bedtime mode was enabled<\/a> for 10 pm. So I stopped taking my devices to bed less and less as time went on.<\/p>\n

But I also found that not having my phone nearby<\/a> made it more anxiety-inducing when I couldn’t sleep. Counting sheep just doesn’t work.<\/p>\n

So instead, I brought my Google Pixel 8 to bed and changed how I interact with bedtime mode, rather than using it to completely cut<\/a> out screen time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I finally enabled the extra features, which did wonders for my sleep habits. While it wasn’t enough to restore my hours, it helped me address my sleep imbalance.<\/p>\n

The first feature I enabled was a smart alarm. One habit that made my insomnia go out of control was how long I’d sleep in on the weekends. If I shut down my alarm because I finally fell asleep, I’d end up sleeping late in the day.<\/p>\n

That affected how easily I’d fall asleep and my eating habits. I’d eat late, and I’d feel awake longer at night. So I needed to make myself wake up properly on time, even if it meant some days I was heavily sleep-deprived because of insomnia.<\/p>\n

That’s when I started using the smart alarm feature (Sunrise Alarm) in the Clock app. It helped wake me up when I wasn’t too deep in my REM-NREM cycle<\/a>, so I didn’t have to manually turn off my alarm on weekends. Doing so eased my wake-up times, even if it made me feel groggy.<\/p>\n

When setting up the smart alarm, I chose Sunrise Alarm and added a new alarm sound from the Calm app<\/a> to my settings.<\/p>\n

\"Adding\"Selecting<\/p>\n

Another option I enabled during setup was the Cough & snore detection feature. I’m not someone who snores, but I have a chronic cough in the winter because my vents are under my bed.<\/p>\n

Coughing is a big reason why my quality of sleep is sometimes poor. I will go into a deep sleep and wake up with a cough.<\/p>\n

So I wanted to see if this was true and not just my imagination. I allowed Google’s bedtime mode to use my microphone permissions to try to detect it.<\/p>\n

\"Allow\"Toggled<\/p>\n

Inside bedtime mode, you’ll see a chart of your screen time, along with your snoring and coughing statistics for the week.<\/p>\n

Checking this showed that I was somehow coughing less, partly because I had turned down the heat before bed and was wearing cooler clothing.<\/p>\n

While there are definitely some third-party apps that do the trick better<\/a>, I didn’t want to enable my microphone permissions and give media access to ones I didn’t trust \u2014 or get suckered into freemium options.<\/p>\n

I downloaded apps to educate and guide my sleep<\/p>\n

Free resources do exist for insomniacs<\/p>\n

\"Woman
\n Credit:\u00a0Lucas Gouveia \/ Android Police | Krakenimages.com \/\u00a0Shutterstock<\/p>\n

My go-to app for guided meditations is Calm. But what I don’t like about it is the freemium model. The selection is extremely limiting, so I often just open YouTube to find channels that have sleep stories or meditations instead.<\/p>\n

So I looked for a free sleep coaching app. The one I came across after doing research is CBT-i Coach. It’s an app endorsed by the National Center for PTSD<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The app uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), which is an evidence-based psychotherapy for treating insomnia. The main use is to help deal with serious chronic insomnia suffered by military members and veterans.<\/p>\n

Though the National Center for PTSD page says the app should not be used for self-care and instead recommends another app, Insomnia Coach, for personal use, I still found that CBT-I worked well for what I used it for, and to me, the apps were similar.<\/p>\n

The reason is that it is an app designed for therapy and should be used under professional guidance. But I didn’t let this deter me from trying it out.<\/p>\n

What I liked about it was the sleep diary and sleep goals section, which helped me figure out other ways to fix it. It was a good way to be more aware of how bad my insomnia was and ways I can try fixing it.<\/p>\n

\"Add\"A<\/p>\n

My brain works more scientifically, so it makes me feel less anxious when I can understand why insomnia can happen.<\/p>\n

But it is also a good way to prepare for therapy if the problems come back and become severe. So, if you want to, you could work with a professional using that app, since it is designed for that.<\/p>\n

I noticed that the less I worried about my sleep, the easier it was to fall asleep and fall back asleep if I needed to.<\/p>\n

Use your Fitbit subscription to level up your sleeping habits<\/p>\n

If you want a true personalized sleep coach to improve your sleep health, pairing a Fitbit-supported smartwatch might be what you need.<\/p>\n

Plus, the sensors on your smartwatch are just better than those on your phone for measuring your sleep.<\/p>\n

With Fitbit Premium<\/a>, you can learn about sleep restoration, which provides information on your sleep heart and the time you spent restless during the night.<\/p>\n

You can also get similar sleep health metrics with other smartwatches, especially if you have a Samsung Galaxy paired with a Galaxy Watch.<\/p>\n

Sleep health isn’t just about how much you sleep in a night. Getting good-quality sleep is equally important. That’s where a great sleep tracker<\/a> can come in handy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since December, I’ve had a new high level of insomnia. It normally takes me a few hours to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[342,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-278018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-mobile","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}