CBT-i Coach

US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

About this app

CBT-i Coach is for people who are engaged in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia with a health provider, or who have experienced symptoms of insomnia and would like to improve their sleep habits. The app will guide you through the process of learning about sleep, developing positive sleep routines, and improving your sleep environment. It provides a structured program that teaches strategies proven to improve sleep and help alleviate symptoms of insomnia.

CBT-i Coach is intended to augment face-to-face care with a healthcare professional. It can be used on its own, but it is not intended to replace therapy for those who need it.

CBT-i Coach is based on the therapy manual, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia in Veterans, by Rachel Manber, Ph.D., Leah Friedman, Ph.D., Colleen Carney, Ph.D., Jack Edinger, Ph.D., Dana Epstein, Ph.D., Patricia Haynes, Ph.D., Wilfred Pigeon, Ph.D. and Allison Siebern, Ph.D. CBT-i has been shown to be efficacious for insomnia for both Veterans and civilians.

CBT-i Coach was a collaborative effort between VA’s National Center for PTSD, Stanford School of Medicine, and DoD’s National Center for Telehealth and Technology.

Ratings and reviews

Overall, this is an incredibly useful app, I can't believe it's free! I used it all throughout my CBTi program and it was absolutely indispensable; seeing the patterns emerge is far easier in the app than using pen and paper. There are a couple of minor quirks but the developers are aware of these and working to resolve them. Knowing these minor issues will get ironed out I give this app 5/5. Regardless, this is an extremely useful app and it's free, so it doesn't get much better!

It helps if you're trying to track your sleep, but it's based on how you want to enter the data. Weekly it has a quitionare to help you set up you recommended sleep time. The annoying part is that every week it wants you to answer it again. After several weeks/months, you have your set schedule, but it doesnt offer you a check box to say "no change" so it goes away for the week or not come back at all.

Keeps changing the reminders I set without knowing about it. The suggested wind down time adjusts randomly, which throws you off your schedule. It focuses on numbers and not actual sleep. If I get up every 20 minutes until I get tired, the app doesn't account for that. You are also limited to view your back log, which is weird since you should have access to your records to show your doctor more than 10 days. Being told I need to see a provider with provider marked is also annoying.

What’s new

- bug fixes and performance improvements