The Rise App Helped Me Figure Out Why I'm Tired All The Time

While a lucky few can get through the day without feeling tired, everyone else is out here chugging coffee, yawning, and sneaking away for a quick power nap. It’s why sleep hacks are so popular on TikTok, like the “alpha bridge” and “puppy paw” trick. It’s also why there are so many apps that promise to help you get better rest.

One of them is the highly-rated Rise. With 4.7 stars and over 37,000 reviews in the App Store, Rise tracks your sleep, analyzes your sleep debt, and then reveals the times throughout the day when you’ll feel most energized. It also notes the hours you can expect to be sluggish and when you should wind down and go to bed.

It sounded like the perfect info for someone like me who’s often fighting off fatigue. I crave a nap around noon, feel tired in the early evening, and almost always want to fall into bed early. Not a day goes by that I’m not sleepy when I should be awake and vice versa — a sure sign my circadian rhythm is out of whack.

After using this app for a few weeks, I’ve realized some interesting patterns when it comes to my energy levels, and I’ve also made a few small tweaks to my daily habits so I can work with my internal clock, instead of against it. Here’s my review of the Rise sleep app, as well as what I changed.

Fast Facts

• Price: $69.99/year, 7-day free trial
• Best for: Streamlining your day, fixing sleep debt, boosting energy
• My rating: 4.5/5
• What I like: No wearable needed, sleek design, helpful info
• What I don't like: Pricey, sleep tracking isn’t 100% accurate

What To Know About The Rise App

Rise is a tracking app that analyzes your sleep and energy levels. Using a wavy line that rises and falls, it shows how long you can expect to feel groggy after waking up, followed by when your energy will peak, and when it will dip again.

The goal is to work with these highs and lows and lower your sleep debt — aka your cumulative sleep loss — by sleeping better each night. One of the best parts? You don’t have to wear a sleep tracker to bed.

The app uses the motion sensor on your phone to detect when you fall asleep and when you wake up, which is perfect for anyone who takes their phone to bed. If you don’t use your phone at night, you can also pair the app to a smartwatch or ring, your phone’s alarm clock, or the Health app.

Rise also reveals your Sleep Need — or how many hours you should try to snooze each night. To catch some solid Zzzs, it offers personalized tips for optimizing your routine. For me, that includes wearing blue-light blocking glasses in the evenings and doing a pre-bed meditation for anxiety.

Rise has a Home tab that shows your sleep debt, a Sleep tab that includes sleep graphs, an Energy tab with your best wind-down times and sleep need, a Tools tab with sleep sounds, habit reminders plus a place to brain dump, and a Guidance tab with expert tips to read, like “Clear Your Mind Before Bed.”

OK, But What Is Sleep Debt?

If you feel tired 24/7 — even after a good night’s sleep — it’s likely because you’ve racked up some serious sleep debt by staying up late, waking up too early, or staring at your phone in the middle of the night. According to the app, keeping your sleep debt low is one of the best ways to reduce fatigue and improve overall well-being.

When your sleep debt is high, it can make you feel groggy, cranky, and clumsy, and it can also contribute to anxiety. When I first downloaded Rise, answered a few questions, and connected to my Health app, it calculated my sleep debt at a whopping 26.5 hours, which immediately explained so much.

Trying The App

When I saw my massive sleep debt, it made sense why I’m often too tired to do what want to do, like go to the gym or see friends. I also learned you can’t fix it with one lazy weekend or a quick nap. Bummer! Sleep debt builds up over time and is only cured with consecutive, solid nights of sleep.

To get back on track, I knew I had to follow Rise’s energy schedule, which showed me my circadian rhythm. To kick off my day, I learned about the “grogginess window,” which lasts about 90 minutes after you wake up.

Even though I sometimes feel awake during this time, my body is still full of sleep hormones, and that means I should take it easy, go for a walk, or do a casual brain dump — not try to solve all my problems or do heavy work.

The best time to lock in and get stuff done — at least for me — is during my morning peak, which lasts from 8:15 until about 11:30. According to Rise, this is when I should feel active and alert, so I’ve been tackling my toughest work and saving mundane tasks for later. On weekends, this is also when I might feel peppy enough to meet my friends for brunch.

After that, the app said my energy would dip from 1:37 to 3:41, and sure enough, that’s when I felt like taking a nap. Each morning, Rise recalculates these dips based on how well you slept, and you can move these windows or extend them by decreasing your sleep debt. Since getting the app, my dips are slightly smaller.

I also had no idea about this, but apparently, everyone gets an energy burst in the evening, too. Mine kicks in at 5 p.m. and lasts until 8:15. Instead of laying around on my phone after work, as I am want to do, this is when I should fit in a few errands, hit the gym, or pop out to happy hour instead of forcing those things on myself later in the night, when my energy dips. By flipping my routine, I’ve noticed I feel so much better.

Where Rise really shines is before bed. It perfectly calculates when you should start winding down. For me, that’s around 8:34. Instead of doing a last-minute clean before I hop into the sheets, I should dim my lights and decompress. The goal is to ease into my melatonin window, which is when my sleep hormones start to kick in. If I can lie down by then, it should be easier to fall and stay asleep.

The Takeaway

Living by these peaks and valleys has not only helped me feel less sleepy during the day, but I’m also slowly chipping away at my sleep debt. As of this morning, my sleep debt is down to 16.7 hours, and I can already tell the difference.

Studies referenced:

Leger, D. (2020.) Napping and weekend catchup sleep do not fully compensate for high rates of sleep debt and short sleep at a population level (in a representative nationwide sample of 12,637 adults). Sleep Med. doi: 10.1016/j.sleep.2020.05.030.