Tidal Sleep

New in the Tidal Family

Let the Day Ebb Away.

Tidal Sleep is a free wind-down and sleep app for iPhone and Apple Watch. Guided body scans, slow tide breathing and sea sounds generated on your phone at night. A calm tide chart of your sleep in the morning, from Apple Watch, Oura, Garmin, Withings or WHOOP.

Coming Soon to the App Store

Sound plays from this page only, generated in your browser. Nothing is downloaded or tracked.

Scroll through one night

One Night, Five Tides

Sleep Is Not a Switch. It Comes in Like the Tide.

Most sleep apps start at lights out and end with a score. Tidal Sleep follows the whole night: the hour before bed, the moment you switch off, the 3am wake-up, your dreams, and the first light.

  1. EbbWind Down
  2. Slack WaterLights Out
  3. Low TideAwake at Night
  4. Dream TideDreams
  5. FloodMorning

On iPhone and Apple Watch

Five Tides, One Calm App.

The same night, on the phone by your bed and the watch on your wrist. Design previews drawn from the app’s design system; the shipping app may differ in small ways.

21:04

Ebb · wind down

Tonight, Maybe the Longer One.

A short night and a drifting week. Twenty minutes, then lights out at 22:45.

Body scan20 min · voice
Promising

All sessions

  • Slow tide breathing5 to 15 min · Watch tapsPromising
  • Muscle release12 min · voicePromising
  • Worry list5 min · writingEarly
  • Deep rest10 or 20 minEarly
EbbSlackLowDreamFlood
Ebb: the hour before bed
22:45

Slack water · lights out

Tide

Generated live. Fades out in 30 min.

TideBrownPinkRain
153060All night
Pause

Wake window armed on your Watch · 06:40 to 07:00

Slack water: sounds and timer
 

Low tide

Awake? No Clock Here.

Three things, in order. Take your time.

  1. 1
    Night tideRaise your wrist. Slow taps.
  2. 2
    Cognitive shuffleA lighthouse. A teacup. A kite.
  3. 3
    Still awake? Get upSomewhere dim. Back when sleepy.
Start night tide

Most nights for three months? One for your GP.

Low tide: 3am mode, no time shown
07:12

Flood · this morning

Steady. Seven Nights.

7h 24asleep
8h 05in bed
Steadysteadiness

Estimates from Apple Watch, not a sleep lab.

coffee latesaunascreen in bed+
How was it?☺☺☺☺
EbbSlackLowDreamFlood
Flood: the night as a tide chart

Night tide

Breathe out

Slow taps on your wrist

Watch: haptic breathing, screen can be off

This morning

7h 24

asleep · Steady

Wake window ended 06:56

Watch: the morning glance

Dream tide

Tap and speak

Transcribed on your phone

Watch: one-tap dream journal

Design previews, not live screenshots. Night mode shows no time by design.

21:00

Ebb · Wind Down

An Hour to Let Go of the Day.

Short guided sessions, each labelled with how strong the evidence is. Pick one, or let the app suggest one based on how your day went.

Promising

Body Scan

A slow, guided sweep of attention from toes to scalp. In trials, mindfulness practices like this improved sleep quality more than matched relaxing activities.

10 or 20 min · voice

Promising

Slow Tide Breathing

About six breaths a minute, paced by a rising and falling tide on screen or gentle taps on your wrist. Reliably calming; the sleep research is mostly self-reported.

5 to 15 min · Watch haptics

Promising

Muscle Release

Progressive muscle relaxation: tense, hold, let go, one muscle group at a time. Good when the body is wired after a long day.

12 min · voice

Early

Deep Rest (Yoga Nidra)

Lying-down guided rest, sometimes called NSDR. Lovely to do, but the research is still small, and we say so.

10 or 20 min · voice

Early

Worry List

Five minutes writing tomorrow’s to-do list. In one sleep lab study, people who did this fell asleep faster than people who wrote about what they had already done.

5 min · on-device notes

Early

Cognitive Shuffle

A calm voice offers random, unrelated things to picture: a lighthouse, a teacup, a kite. Designed to break the loop of racing thoughts.

15 min · voice

Try It: Your Evening Tide Table

When Do You Need to Be Up?

Set your wake time and how much sleep tends to suit you. The planner works backwards using the research on caffeine, warm showers and winding down.

    A guide, not a rule. Adults generally need 7 to 9 hours. If you work shifts, are pregnant or have a health condition, your best timings may differ. See the science for every source.

    22:30

    Slack Water · Lights Out

    The Screen Goes Dark. The Sea Keeps Going.

    Sea sounds are generated live on your phone, not looped from a recording, so there is no tell-tale repeat at minute four. They swell slowly, roughly in time with a calm breath, then fade out on a timer you set.

    • Tide, brown and pink noise, all generated on device
    • Fades out after 15, 30 or 60 minutes, or plays until morning
    • Apple Watch can pace slow breathing with gentle taps on your wrist
    • A red-shifted, ultra-dim interface after dark

    Listen

    Honest note: research on noise for sleep is weak. Use it if you like it, quietly, on a timer.

    Fades out after 60 seconds on this page. Keep the volume low: quiet is the point.

    03:12

    Low Tide · Awake in the Night

    We Will Never Show You the Time at 3am.

    Clock-watching makes waking worse. Open Tidal Sleep in the night and you get a dim red screen with no numbers, and a simple, evidence-led path back to sleep.

    1. Stay still, breathe slowly.Raise your wrist and the Watch paces a slow tide with gentle taps.
    2. Give your mind somewhere boring to go.A cognitive shuffle or body scan, at the lowest volume that works.
    3. Awake for what feels like 15 to 20 minutes? Get up.Somewhere dim and comfortable, something calm, back to bed when sleepy. It is one of the most widely recommended tips in NHS and sleep medicine guidance. Guess the time: no checking.

    Tidal Sleep is a wellness app, not a treatment. If poor sleep has lasted three months or more and is affecting your days, please talk to your GP. The recommended first treatment for long-term insomnia in the UK is CBT for insomnia, which your GP can arrange.

    05:40

    Dream Tide · Dreams

    Remember Your Dreams. Maybe Even Steer One.

    The longest dream periods come in the last hours of the night. Tidal Sleep gives you a private dream journal you can speak into the moment you wake, and an optional, research-based lucid dreaming course.

    • Voice dream journal, transcribed on your phone, never uploaded
    • MILD rehearsal: the technique with the best evidence for lucid dreams
    • Gentle reality-check nudges during the day, if you want them
    • Off by default, with honest notes on sleep loss and who should skip it
    Read About Dreams and Lucid Dreaming
    07:00

    Flood · Morning

    Wake Gently. Read the Tide, Not a Score.

    Your night appears as a tide chart, drawn from the sleep your Apple Watch, Oura Ring or WHOOP already records in Apple Health. No grade to chase: trying to perfect sleep scores can itself make sleep worse.

    Example tide chart of a night’s sleep An illustration of a night shown as waves: deeper troughs early in the night for deep sleep, and longer crests of dream sleep towards morning.
    AwakeDream (REM)LightDeep Illustration. Wearable sleep stages are estimates, not a sleep lab.

    Regularity First

    The app’s headline is how steady your sleep times are. In a study of around 60,000 people, regular sleepers had lower mortality risk, and regularity predicted it better than sleep length.

    A Smarter Alarm on Your Wrist

    Choose a wake window of up to 30 minutes. Your Apple Watch taps you awake with a rising haptic tide, so your partner does not have to wake with you. A comfort feature: we make no promise it beats grogginess.

    Evening, Tuned by Morning

    Rough night or low recovery? Tonight’s wind-down is longer and gentler. Good run of nights? The app gets out of your way.

    Works with

    • Apple WatchSleep stages, heart rate, wrist temperature, via Apple Health
    • Oura RingSleep stages through Apple Health at launch; readiness and HRV with a direct link later
    • WHOOPSleep times through Apple Health at launch; stages and recovery with a direct link later
    • Withings Sleep AnalyzerThe under-mattress mat. Sleep through Apple Health at launch; a direct link later
    • No wearable?Phone on the mattress mode is on the roadmap. Until then, a simple in-bed and wake log
    How the Wearable Links Work
    • Your data is yoursEvery night, note and recording is free to view, edit, delete and export as CSV or PDF. Always.
    • Fix a wrong nightLogged asleep while you were reading? Mark it awake. Missed a night? Add it by hand.
    • Shift work welcomeSet your own day boundary. Naps count. Nothing assumes you sleep at night.
    • No ads, no surveys, no nagsOne optional bedtime reminder, and a switch that silences everything.

    Built on the Research

    Every Claim Has a Source. Every Source Has a Label.

    8.8 hHow long before bed a typical coffee needs to be, to stop it cutting into sleep, according to a 2023 meta-analysis of 24 studies.
    1 to 2 hBefore bed is the sweet spot for a warm shower or bath. In a 2019 review, even 10 minutes helped people fall asleep sooner.
    1stCBT for insomnia is the first-line treatment for long-term insomnia in UK guidance, ahead of sleeping pills. Your GP can refer you.
    Read the Science Library

    Coming Soon

    Free on iPhone and Apple Watch.

    No account. No ads. No tracking. Your sleep data stays on your phone, in Apple Health, unless you choose to link a wearable.

    Coming Soon to the App Store

    The Tidal Family

    Tidal BreathBreathing, by day Tidal ContrastCold water and sauna Tidal MobilityMove well, every day Tidal SleepYou are here