App review: Sleepio putting insomniacs to sleep

The cognitive behavioural therapy app Sleepio helps those struggling to get some shut-eye improve their sleep habits.

You can sign up for the sleepio app for £7.99 a week or £109.99 for a year.

One of the biggest factors in work productivity is how well we sleep, which might account for the chatter about the app Sleepio.

The online cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) course, paid for by subscription, is based on scientific research and designed to help those struggling to get some decent shut-eye.

Users are first asked to fill in a short multiple choice questionnaire about their sleep habits. My issue was “poor sleep hygiene”. I went to bed on time but then watched TV or read for several hours rather than actually sleeping, leaving me groggy in the morning.

I logged this and then a friendly cartoon “Prof” suggested some behavioural changes I could make. The app can be synched with iOS and Android mobile devices and linked to fitness gadgets that can monitor your restlessness.

Sometimes the cutesy cartoons can get a little cloying, but the short intro course had three main topics; it guided me through lifestyle changes such as how I react to stress, offered tips to make the bedroom more amenable to sleep and revealed how to control unwanted or negative thoughts. The key for me was to only use the bedroom to sleep in.

For those with chronic problems, the solutions are more radical. The app helps insomniacs calculate the average number of hours per night they actually sleep. The user must then only spend this amount of time in bed, until they achieve 100 per cent sleep efficiency. Only then can they increase the time spent in bed.

The idea is to create an association with getting into bed and falling asleep. Many users have said the technique has solved lifelong problems.

However, Dr Irshaad Ebrahim, medical director of the London Sleep Centre, advises insomniacs to be evaluated by a specialised physician first. “With an increase globally of people seeking help for sleep problems, it is an inevitable consequence that there will be those seeking commercial advantage from this vulnerable group.”

You can sign up at sleepio.com for £7.99 (Dh45) a week or £109.99 for a year.

q&a the value of sweet dreams

Colin Espie, co-founder and scientific director of Sleepio, tells Jessica Holland more about the app:

How does Sleepio help professionals?

We often treat our need for sleep as an optional extra, when we should prioritise it because good sleep delivers good well-being, affecting our energy, concentration, mood and personal functioning. Sleep is a fundamental for life. Poor sleepers were found to be three times more likely to struggle to concentrate, and twice as likely to experience low mood.

What scientific evidence do you have to back up the app’s effectiveness?

Sleepio creates a personalised programme of proven cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) techniques to help those with long-term sleep problems. The programme is rooted in science and backed up by world-leading clinical evidence. We took decades of clinical research and our expert team’s experience with CBT and designed an engaging, self-help programme around it. We then tested its effectiveness in a gold standard clinical trial, where Sleepio was shown to be comparable to in-person therapy with great results.

How successful has this been?

Very successful. In the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) is referring depression and anxiety patients to a trial of Sleepio, which was created by digital medicine company Big Health. Amazingly, 65 per cent of the 100-plus patients have so far “moved to recovery” for depression, surpassing the NHS target of 50 per cent. Sleepio is not only effective for getting rid of insomnia, but a good night’s sleep can also have a huge impact on mental health.

Follow The National's Business section on Twitter