# Sleep Switch > Slug: `sleep-switch` · Platforms: **Android** · Category: Health & Fitness ## Meta - Title: Military Sleep Method App — Guided Drills | Sleep Switch - Tagline: Nine guided drills for a head that will not stop — the cognitive shuffle, the military method, 4-7-8 breathing. Eyes closed, phone face down. ## Short description Sleep Switch turns sleep techniques into guided drills you do with your eyes closed: the cognitive shuffle with 478 non-repeating prompts, the military method, 4-7-8 breathing, body scan and yoga nidra. Voice guidance, optional haptic breath cues, and a screen that goes dark by itself. ## Long description Sleep Switch is a sleep-onset app for the specific problem of a tired body and a head that will not stop. It is not a sound library and it does not score your night. You pick a technique, close your eyes, and a quiet voice walks you through it. Nine drills ship, each labelled in the app with how well studied it is — "well studied", "one controlled study", "mechanism studied", "traditional practice". The **cognitive shuffle** names 478 different ordinary objects for you to picture and remembers what it just said, so the words do not loop back on you. The **military sleep method** runs as a drill instead of an article: face, shoulders, arms, chest, legs, then the mind. **4-7-8 breathing** is counted for you, with optional haptic cues so you can follow it with the phone face down. **Body scan** and **yoga nidra** are there for the nights you have time to spare. And at 3am it stops behaving like an app. Still awake an hour later, it tells you to get out of bed and put the phone down — and nothing is ever sold to you between 2am and 5am. Built by [Teamz Lab](https://teamzlab.com). The techniques are the product, not the sounds. ## Official URLs - Landing: https://apps.teamzlab.com/sleep-switch/ - Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teamzlab.sleep_switch - Android package: `com.teamzlab.sleep_switch` ## SEO keywords - military sleep method - military method for sleep - military sleep technique - cognitive shuffle - 4 7 8 breathing method for sleep - cognitive shuffling for sleep ## Hero - Headline: The military sleep method, the cognitive shuffle and 4-7-8 breathing — as drills, not articles - Subheadline: Nine guided techniques for falling asleep, run with your eyes closed. A voice, a count, optional haptics, and a screen that turns itself off when the drill ends. - Primary CTA: Get it on Google Play - Secondary CTA: See how it works ## Screenshot captions - screenshots/1.jpg: All nine drills on one screen, split into quieting the mind and calming the body — each one badged with how well studied it is - screenshots/2.jpg: Tell it what is happening — thoughts that will not stop, a body that feels tight, awake a long time — and it picks the drill for you - screenshots/3.jpg: The cognitive shuffle mid-run: one ordinary object at a time, and it remembers what it just said so the list never loops back - screenshots/4.jpg: The hold phase of 4-7-8 breathing. The ring counts it for you, with optional haptic cues for a phone lying face down - screenshots/5.jpg: The 3am rescue screen does not offer you another drill — it sends you out of bed, which is stimulus control - screenshots/6.jpg: Every drill shows its evidence label before you start it. This one reads Overthinking · One controlled study - screenshots/7.jpg: Three night skies to sleep under — Midnight Teal, Moon Indigo, Warm Ember Night — with a reduce-motion switch beside them - screenshots/8.jpg: The privacy policy sits inside Settings in plain words, naming the only three numbers the reminder server is ever told ## Feature blocks ### The cognitive shuffle, without the repeats A voice names one ordinary object at a time — a raspberry, a canoe, rain on a tent — and you picture it. Too dull to follow, too scattered to worry with. Sleep Switch ships 478 prompts and tracks what it just said, which matters: the one other dedicated cognitive-shuffle app's most common complaint is that it starts repeating after about ten. ### The military sleep method as a drill The technique every article describes and no app actually runs: face, shoulders, arms, chest, legs, then clearing the mind. Guided end to end, at a length you pick, with nothing to read. ### 4-7-8 breathing, counted for you In for four, hold for seven, out for eight — counted out loud or by touch, so you are not watching a clock. Optional haptic cues on every phase, with adjustable strength, because a phone on your chest under a duvet feels nothing like one in your hand. ### Body scan, yoga nidra and paradoxical intention Attention moving slowly down the body; a long still wind-down (yoga nidra, sometimes called non-sleep deep rest); and "Don't Try to Sleep", which is paradoxical intention and is exactly what it sounds like. Used in sleep therapy, and badged as such. ### A 3am screen that tells you to stop Still awake an hour after lights out? The rescue flow does not offer you another drill. It tells you to get out of bed and put the phone down — stimulus control, the best-evidenced thing in the app. And nothing is ever sold to you between 2am and 5am. ### Nine voices, six night backgrounds, or silence Pick a voice or turn it off entirely. Light spring rain, forest night, birds at night, moonlit hours, pink noise or ambient night, under the guidance or on their own. Every voice and every background is included free. ### The sky matches the weather where you are If you let it, the night behind the drill dresses for tonight's actual forecast — rain on screen when it is raining outside. It never asks for a location permission: the lookup is by IP, opt-in, and rounded to about a kilometre. ### Every technique says how well studied it is Each drill carries an evidence label in the app — "well studied", "one controlled study", "mechanism studied", "traditional practice". Nothing here claims to cure anything. Exercise is deliberately absent, because the meta-analysis says it does not shorten the time it takes to fall asleep. ### Runs offline, and turns the screen off for you Every drill works in airplane mode. When a session ends the display goes dark by itself, so there is no lit phone next to your face at the moment you are trying to sleep. No ads, anywhere, ever. ## How it works ### Step 1: Pick a technique Nine drills, grouped by what they do. Or tell the app how you feel and let it choose — a racing mind and a restless body do not get the same exercise. ### Step 2: Close your eyes Set the length, pick a voice or silence, then put the phone down. The screen dims as the drill runs and there is nothing to look at or tap. ### Step 3: It ends by itself The drill finishes, the screen goes dark, and the app steps out of the way. In the morning it asks one question — whether the night went better — and the switch comes back on. ## FAQ ### Q: What is the military sleep method? A relaxation sequence used in military training: relax the face, drop the shoulders and let the arms go, breathe out and relax the chest, then the legs, then spend about ten seconds clearing the mind. Sleep Switch runs it as a guided drill — a voice takes you through each stage at a set pace — instead of leaving you to remember the steps with your eyes closed. ### Q: Does the military sleep method actually work? The evidence is weaker than the internet suggests. It is a progressive-relaxation technique, and progressive relaxation itself is well studied for sleep onset — over thirty randomised trials. The specific "fall asleep in two minutes" claim attached to the military version is not from a controlled study. Sleep Switch labels it "well studied" for the relaxation mechanism, not for the two-minute promise, and the app never makes that promise. ### Q: What is cognitive shuffling? You deliberately picture a series of unrelated, ordinary objects — a kite, a spoon, a pine cone — one after another. The idea is that a random sequence is too incoherent for your brain to build a worry out of, which is what counting sheep fails at: sheep are a pattern, and a pattern leaves room to think. Sleep Switch names 478 different prompts and remembers the recent ones so the list does not loop. ### Q: How do I do 4-7-8 breathing for sleep? Breathe in through the nose for a count of four, hold for seven, breathe out through the mouth for eight. The long exhale is the active part. Sleep Switch counts it for you, out loud or by haptic pulse, so you can do it with the phone face down and your eyes shut rather than watching a timer. ### Q: Which works better for sleep, the military method or the cognitive shuffle? They fix different problems. The cognitive shuffle is for a racing mind: picturing random, ordinary objects leaves no room to build a worry. The military method is for a body that will not let go: it relaxes the face, shoulders, arms, chest and legs in order. That is why Sleep Switch asks what is happening tonight — thoughts that will not stop, a body that feels tight, awake a long time — and picks the drill for you. ### Q: Is Sleep Switch free? Eight of the nine techniques are free, at up to fifteen minutes each, with every voice and every background included. Sleep Plus adds longer sessions and the full Deep Rest. Nothing is ever offered to you between 2am and 5am. ### Q: Does it work offline? Every drill runs with no network at all — airplane mode is fine. The only thing that ever reaches out is the optional night sky, which fetches a forecast so the weather on screen matches the weather outside. ### Q: Does it need my location? No. It never asks for a location permission. If you turn the matching sky on, it works out roughly which city you are in from your IP address and rounds the result to about a kilometre — enough for a forecast, not enough to know your street. ### Q: What data does Sleep Switch collect? Your ratings and the words you picture stay on the phone. The reminder server is told three numbers — the hour to remind you, the day the next reminder is allowed, and when you last finished a session — and the app prints those three numbers in Settings so you can read them yourself. Anonymous counts of which drill ran and for how long go to analytics, so "does this work" can be answered against real use. ### Q: What should I do when I cannot sleep at 3am? Stop trying. The best-evidenced advice is stimulus control: if you have been awake for roughly twenty minutes, get out of bed, go somewhere dim, and come back when you feel sleepy — so the bed stops being the place where you lie awake. That is exactly what Sleep Switch's rescue screen tells you to do, and it is the one screen in the app that sends you away from your phone. ### Q: Is this a medical device or a treatment for insomnia? No. These are wind-down exercises and the app says so. Weeks of bad nights are a conversation for a doctor, not a download. ## Privacy (from content source) ### Data safety Your ratings and the words you picture stay on your phone. Anonymous counts of which drill ran, and for how long, go to analytics; the reminder service is told three numbers, all of which the app prints in Settings. No account, no ads, no advertising ID. ### Permissions Notifications, for the wind-down reminder, and nothing else that touches you. No location permission, no microphone, no photos, no contacts. ### Policy URL https://teamzlab.com/privacy-policy ## Store / monetization (from content; verify on store) - Price: free - In-app purchases: true --- ## Landing page body (full markdown below the fold on site) ## Sleep techniques, run as drills Every technique on this page is one you can already read about. The articles are the problem: at 1am, with the lights off, nobody remembers an eight-step relaxation sequence or counts their own breath accurately. Sleep Switch is those same techniques turned into something you can do with your eyes closed — a voice, a count, a length, and an ending. ## What it deliberately is not It is not a sound library. There are six night backgrounds and they are a background, not the product. It is not a sleep tracker: nothing measures you, and there is no score in the morning to feel bad about. And it does not include exercise, which would be the easiest thing in the world to put on a feature list — the meta-analysis says exercise does not shorten the time it takes to fall asleep, so it stays out.