I Tried the Calm App to Help Improve My Sleep Habits

As a young kid, I remember my mom asking me one particularly chilly morning why in the world I had turned the fan on. The only honest answer I could give, while bundled up under several blankets, was that I liked the sound. I eventually replaced the fan with three ticking wall clocks (which I guess was a little much for anyone but me because the morning after my grandparents stayed in my room on their visit, I found all three clocks had had the batteries taken out).

So I put the batteries back in the clocks and have enjoyed finding new ways to help me fall asleep faster or focus better during the workday (which can be a challenge sometimes with my ADHD). But recently, I have wanted to get some help with all this, so when the opportunity came along to test out the Calm app, I was excited to explore its many sleep aid sounds. Would there be a fan or a ticking clock too? 

I tried the app for several months to find out and while sadly, there wasn’t a clock in the soundscapes, I did find a wide array of auditory offerings to help me get up in the morning, power through the day, pause for a meditation moment, or help me drift off to sleep. Read on to find out more about my experience.

How I Signed Up for Calm

The Calm app is available through its website, on the Apple App Store, and on the Google Play Store. I downloaded it to my iPhone.

I could immediately access a limited amount of free content—like a free timed meditation, one sleep story, and the first day of some multi-day meditation sessions—but this is more of a preview of what you can expect from the paid premium version than a useful mindfulness tool; it would likely turn stale after several repeated exercises, so I signed up for the full subscription.

When you sign up, you do answer a few questions about yourself and what you’re hoping to gain from the app. For example, it asked me how familiar I was with meditation, and what life stressors were keeping me from being calm in my daily life. The questions felt similar to intake questions you’d see before signing up for a mental health service, but where those questions would lead me to match with a therapist, this felt more like data collection than something that would help tailor the app to my needs.

My Experience With the Calm App

I first encountered Calm like most people do—through advertising. In the middle of a sensory overload of brightly colored commercials for new cars and snack food, suddenly the TV speakers would drop down to a simple soothing voice reading a story against a calm night sky background. These Calm app advertisements made it clear that it would offer a new approach to breaking away from the noise of the day and finding ways to bring the volume down. 

So it would have been easy to assume from the commercials that Calm was a story-reading service like Audible or a phone-based white noise machine for sleep, but I was surprised to see just how much more content was available to paid subscribers once I signed up.

One of the best things about the Calm app is its wide, wide variety of content—it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll find something that works for you. Sure, there were rain soundscapes (you’d be surprised by just how many variations of rain the app has, but more on that later), but Calm offers a wide variety of talented voice artists, including many notable celebrities, covering a wide variety of subjects. I didn’t know just how satisfying it would be to have LeVar Burton of "Reading Rainbow" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation" fame slowly walk me through the moons and planets in our solar system, but it’s a truly inspired pairing that I never knew I really needed to hear. 

The Calm app also offers a number of directed, curated music playlists, far more than I could have explored during my trial period. My favorite was “Infinite Lofi for Focus,” which is one of Calm’s three infinite “generative music” channels that features music created by musicians that can blend songs seamlessly together in a way that, according to Calm, is “built to play infinitely and be ever changing.”

In addition to all of these features designed to help you disconnect and relax, the Calm app also offers guided meditations for just about any circumstance—think “Reducing Work Anxiety” or “Overcoming Negative Thinking,” for example. I even stopped while writing this review to participate in the four-minute “Step Away From the Computer” meditation, which encourages you to check in with your body and breathe from your computer chair, then asks you to go for a brief walk around your office—or your WFH office, in my case—while staying indoors (it’s only four minutes long, after all) and focus on the sensations of mindful walking before heading back to your seat. 

I Started By Using Calm’s Soundscapes

At first, I started off easy, playing around with the Calm soundscapes for sleep, like simple rain sounds. I had previously cued up my Amazon Alexa to play rain sounds if I had trouble sleeping but it only ever seemed to play the same one track. In contrast, the Calm app has over 15 different rain soundscapes based around different locations, like “Rainforest Rain,” “Rolling Thunderstorm,” “Rain on Tent,” “Skylight Rain,” “Lighthouse Cottage” (with or without the radio playing) and my favorite—I have no idea why—“Car in the Rain.”

There were simple and repetitive sounds, from washing machines and ocean waves to city noise and airplane cabins to more creative soundscapes like “Spaceship Engine Room” and “Serene Submarine.” 

The Calm app also features limited-time soundscapes from popular TV shows and books. For example, the soundscape for “The Office”—with its mild office chatter, clinking coffee mugs, and humming photocopier—was a little more noisy than calming for me, but I could see where it could really be a hit for some users. 

For me specifically, “Infinite Lofi for Focus” was a great tool. I had learned a while back that one of the best ways to manage my ADHD during the workday was to listen to something that could draw just a little bit of my attention while I worked, without fully pulling away my focus. I’ve found that some of the music that works best for me during the workday is instrumental without vocals (like some types of lofi, vaporwave, and smooth jazz), so I jumped at the chance to explore Calm’s “Infinite Lofi for Focus.” It was like it was made specifically for me! It’s unique enough to calm my racing thoughts without stealing my focus through distracting vocals or song breaks. 

Calm’s Sleep Stories Really Worked for Me

Over the course of my trial, I tried out several of Calm’s sleep stories. These stories can be cued up with one tap, almost like loading a podcast, along with a pause button and 15-second skip back or skip ahead buttons. The stories are all scripted and are either original pieces (one is simply framed as a nosy neighbor catching you up on all the hot gossip around a small town) or short excerpts from famous books like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or The Great Gatsby. Don’t expect to have the entire novel read to you, though; only the third chapter of Gatsby is read, for some reason.

According to the thumbnail image, Mr. Calm is a confident little blue blob with a smile and a hip hairstyle. And naturally, the story is narrated by Mr. Calm, who describes just how calm he is by combining the calmest things he can think of: a koala, on spring break, napping, in a beanbag chair. Over the course of the 39-minute story, Mr. Calm goes on to describe his hometown, the local school, the downtown culture, and…well…your guess is as good as mine, because I’ve never made it past the 10-minute mark without falling asleep.

I’m proud to admit that I have no idea how “Mr. Calm” ends and a part of me hopes I never will. In fact, the Calm app agrees too, because when I opened my phone the next morning, I saw a “Good Morning” message that said, “How did that sleep story end? We hope you never find out.”

The Calm app has a lot to offer but one of its biggest downsides is, like a gym membership or a library card, you will only get as much out of it as the time you engage with it. 

For example, during the sign-up process, I was shown occasional, promotional stats about the percentage of users who’d reported positive results from using the app, and I can say that on nights where “Mr. Calm” or rain sounds played in the background, I fell asleep faster. Conversely, on the night my cellphone battery died and I sat in a bedroom that was too dark and quiet, I did miss it. Had I used it that night, maybe I’d have slept better or maybe I wouldn’t have, but I could imagine that several quiet nights without it would leave my mind racing and my sleep cycle off.

Pros & Cons

I had a largely positive experience with Calm, but there are always positives and negatives for any app like this. Here are my pros and cons.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I really enjoyed my time testing the Calm app and seeing what unique and specialized experiences it offered. To be honest, I laughed out loud when I opened the app one morning when I was struggling to get out of bed and saw a five-minute “Starting Off on the Right Foot” meditation with an image of someone stretching out of bed against the sunrise shining through the window. It really felt like that encouraging friend who texts you a supportive message after a particularly hard day.

Even when I was cleaning out my storage unit, out of respect for anyone else around, I didn’t want to play my usual band of opinionated podcasters and hot take live streamers out loud—so I turned once again to “Infinite Lofi for Focus.”

Had it not been for this review, I may have never ventured outside of the dozen or so sleepy rain sounds (which I’d say wouldn’t have been worth the price alone) but I can see this being a regular part of my routine as long as I commit to using it. 

That’s why I would argue that if the full-year subscription (or the lifetime subscription) is within your budget, it would be worth it because it will always be available, even during months of heavy or light use. During a particularly busy month, I’d feel like I wasted $15 if I didn’t use it, but averaging it all out over several months, I’d know I was getting my money’s worth. 

The Calm app would also make for a great gift when you want to get something a bit more meaningful for a stressed-out loved one. For example, I’m not sure that the Calm app is something that I’d see buying for myself, primarily for budget reasons, but I loved interacting with the content and would absolutely adore it as a gift. 

So if you’re looking for a quick break or a longer meditation session, Calm has you covered; and if you’ve ever wondered what the bridge of a starship might sound like, well, Calm has you covered there too. As for me, I’m still wondering what in the world happens during the last 29 minutes of “Mr. Calm.”