CBT-i Coach 12+

I know that this is designed to be used in conjunction with a real live therapist and admittedly I am a psychologist myself, although not trained in cbti specifically, so I may have a head start.

However, I found that in conjunction with a good cbti manual (I'm using Colin Espie's), this app is really helpful for recording and tracking sleep, with some straightforward tips and tricks on "sleep habits", aka sleep hygiene.

I really liked the sleep prescription function, which takes a week's worth of data, with your desired wake up time, and calculates a sleep restriction program for you.

Be warned, if you're having less than 5 hours sleep, it won't do this and will tell you to see a professional. If you live in the UK, you can self refer to your local NHS Iapt service who should provide CBTi. If you can't do this, you might want to know that five hours is the minimum recommended time in bed in CBTi, so if you're having less total sleep than that, decide when you want to get up, and work backwards- voila, your prescribed bedtime.

You also need to be aware that sleep restriction can be hard. It was fairly easy for me because my sleep couldn't get much worse, but you might need to pick your timing, particularly if you have to drive etc during the day and sleep restriction might impair this.

Bottom line: did it help my chronic insomnia? I'm very happy to say that when nothing else had made much impact, it did!

I have been using this for years and wake up to a new app and all my data gone!!!! No warning whatsoever! I’m expected to start over? I needed that historic data. I will not be using this.