I Couldn’t Get My Mind to Stop Racing at Night, So I Tried the Breethe App

I’ve never been a great sleeper. Sometimes I’ll experience occasional bouts of insomnia that keep me up most of the night. None of this is helped by the fact that I also sleep with my spouse, who has her own sleep schedule, and—don’t tell her I told you—sometimes snores. What’s more, all too frequently, our toddler and his older brother end up in our bed at night, kicking, coughing, and asking for water.

In hopes of developing better sleep habits even amid the outside forces I can’t control, like small kicking legs, I turned to Breethe, a wellness app co-created with Lynne Goldberg, one of the top meditation teachers in North America. It claims to help you get better sleep in addition to teaching you meditation. I was especially looking forward to trying the app's meditations, sleep music, and sleep stories, but I was also eager to try sleep hypnotherapy, which I’d never seen on an app before and hadn’t previously tried.

I had tried and failed at other meditation apps in the past but found sleep music soothing on nights when I was especially restless. I’d only listened to one sleep story before, so I thought it was time to branch out. I used Breethe for about a month and found some of the app’s programs quite helpful—read on to learn about them.

How I Started Exploring the App

I loved the look and offerings on Breethe, but was immediately put off by the price tag.

Despite balking at the monthly fee, I appreciated that I could simply take a break by canceling my subscription and pick up where I left off if I decided to come back to the app. I also found that if I canceled my subscription, I was offered one month’s access for $1.

The Breethe app offers a meditation option but I focused on improving my sleep habits. The interface is user-friendly and suggests goals and programs that I found easy to navigate. When I clicked on “Sleep stories,” for example, there were several photos with different names and story lengths. When I clicked into a specific story, there was a little background about the story and the narrator. These offerings range from a few short minutes to over an hour long.

I was glad to find programs on the homepage focused on sleep health. Some examples of these were “Unwind after work,” “Elevate your evening,” and “Fall asleep.” “Fall Asleep" featured sleep meditations, a sleep story recommended by Breethe, and soothing music and nature sounds. These categories were helpful, since I  wanted quick access to Breethe’s sleep tools.

Sleep Stories

I have listened to sleep stories previously and found them helpful, so I thought I’d try a few on Breethe to see how they compared. Sleep stories on the app can be anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes long. I thought the stories had a nice variety of narrators.

First, I chose the story “A Stroll Through Central Park,” because I’m familiar with the location and was curious to hear where the story would take me. The narrator spoke clearly and slowly, much slower than I am used to in my fast-paced life. I got distracted and moved on to another story after a few minutes.

I tried a whispered story as well, but it wasn’t for me. The narrator read a section from Little Women, but I couldn’t focus on the story because I was preoccupied by her whisper. When I chose to end the program early, I was asked to give a reason why. I chose the first option, “I didn’t like the voice.” This didn’t happen every time I ended a program, and it didn’t seem to change the offerings presented to me. I believe it’s simply there to help improve the app.

Hypnotherapy

I was most curious to try hypnotherapy because I was skeptical about it from the get-go. I often have trouble with meditation or focusing on any practice where I need to calm my mind and body, and I assumed I’d have similar trouble with hypnotherapy.

The first time I tried one of the app’s hypnotherapy sessions, I'd stayed out late and wasn’t sure I could settle quickly into sleep. However, I nodded off pretty quickly in the hypnotherapy session, which seemed like a success. I tried it again on an average night, and again, I fell asleep during the session. The session I tried was led by an intense, deep-voiced narrator who warned us not to listen while operating a vehicle. The narrator also suggested that users listen using headphones, but I was unable to do that because I find them uncomfortable for sleeping.

The hypnotherapy sessions are at least 30 minutes long, so it’s possible I just fell asleep naturally.

One night while experiencing insomnia, I tried a hypnotherapy session specifically for insomnia with a female narrator. I was guided to picture myself on a beach, then from there, picture myself thinking about climbing a staircase. I fell asleep during this hypnotherapy and found myself in a dream within a dream, so the hypnotherapy impacted my sleep. I think the fact that I was asleep at all means the impact was positive.

Guided Tapping

I also tried guided tapping via the app, which is a technique that combines acupressure and psychology to treat things like anxiety and stress. It’s called tapping because you tap on endpoints of your body’s meridians, such as your collarbones, and several different points on your face while saying certain statements, such as repeating a mantra or affirmation related to whatever is causing you stress. I felt like it could be effective with prolonged use, but I only tried it once. I think if I went back to it I might appreciate its benefits and the direct focus it puts on specific thoughts.

Meditations and Music

Sleep meditations on Breethe range from two minutes ("Set Yourself Up for Sleep," for example) to one hour (“Deep Sleep Meditation”) and guide users toward better sleep habits. Since meditating has been challenging for me, I stuck with shorter meditations such as “Set Yourself Up for Sleep.” This two-minute meditation instructed me to calm my breath and begin to relax my body.

The app also has “Music & Sounds” to help lull you to sleep. There are options like “serene harp,” “mystical flutes,” “sounds of rain,” and “white noise,” to name a few. These offerings are each a few hours long. I don’t like white noise, but I did enjoy the flutes and rain sounds. I’d leave them on until I fell asleep and the sound was quite soothing.

Pros and Cons

As someone who shares a bed with a spouse, I went into using Breethe knowing it was unlikely that I’d use the app every evening. But, it feels like a gentle and natural backup plan for nights I’m up late, over-tired, or simply having trouble winding down. Here are my pros and cons for the app.

Final Thoughts

I downloaded the Breethe app hoping to discover sleep stories for the nights I need a little help falling asleep. After exploring it, I was pleasantly surprised by other bedtime options I hadn't considered, like hypnotherapy and meditation.

As someone whose skin crawls anytime I attempt a guided meditation, I was happy to see that there were options as brief as two minutes to help me get in the right mindset before bed. The short meditations took the pressure off and allowed me to feel relaxed.

It is calming and grounding to focus on the simple act of listening.

I also appreciated the profile feature, which saves your goals and the programs you’ve previously listened to. This feature makes it simple to navigate back to a meditation you found useful, for instance.

Some apps focus only on mediation, and others add just a few sleep stories into the mix, but Breethe allows users to find out which programs work best for them and then have a variety of those programs to choose from.