Progressive muscle relaxation — the family of techniques behind our wind-down sequence — has been used in behavioral sleep medicine since Edmund Jacobson formalized it in the 1930s.
Jacobson, E. Progressive Relaxation. University of Chicago Press, 1938.Featherbed
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Learn more
The session
How
it works
One tap, one sound. Featherbed plays a single, carefully mixed audio file — the countdown, the fades, and the length are all baked in, so your phone has nothing left to do but play it. Put the phone down, and it finishes on its own.
- Rain
A steady rain bed masks the noises your brain wants to listen for — traffic, neighbors, a ticking mind.
- Descent
Underneath, a quiet tone pulses slower and slower — a 6-to-2-hertz descent, gentle enough to ignore. On headphones it is rendered as binaural; on a speaker, as a speaker-safe pulse.
- Wind-down
A calm voice walks you through a body-settling sequence — face, shoulders, arms, breath, legs, still water — paced with long, sleepy pauses, then fades away and leaves you with the rain.
Over the last few minutes everything fades slowly to silence. If you are still awake, tap Sleep again — there is no streak to break and nothing to feel bad about.
The evidence
The science,
told honestly
Sleep apps love to overclaim. We would rather you trust us, so here is exactly where each part of Featherbed stands — including the parts that are more experiment than promise.
- Solid ground
- Promising
- Anecdote
Solid ground
Slow, paced breathing reliably calms the physiological arousal that keeps people awake. Our voice paces your exhale to slow it down.
Zaccaro et al. (2018). How breath-control can change your life: a systematic review. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.Steady masking sound helps people fall asleep amid environmental noise — which is why rain, not silence, is the default bed.
Basner & McGuire (2018). WHO environmental noise guidelines: a systematic review on noise and sleep. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health.Promising, mixed evidence
Brainwave entrainment (binaural and pulsed tones) has studies behind it, but they are small and results are mixed. We mix it far below the rain — felt more than noticed — and make no promises about it.
Basu et al. (2020). Prospect of brainwave entrainment to promote well-being: a brief review. Psychological Studies.Pink-noise-synced sound has been shown to deepen slow-wave sleep in controlled lab studies. It is encouraging — and it is not a guarantee.
Papalambros et al. (2017). Acoustic enhancement of sleep slow oscillations and memory improvement in older adults. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.The famous anecdote
You may have heard that a US Navy method puts “96% of pilots” to sleep in two minutes. That number comes from a track coach's 1981 training book, not peer-reviewed research. The sequence underneath it — relax the face, drop the shoulders, slow the breath, picture still water — is the genuinely durable part, and it is what our wind-down voice walks you through.
Winter, B. Relax and Win. 1981. The claim is folklore-adjacent; the relaxation sequence is not.Featherbed is not a medical device, not a treatment for insomnia, and not a substitute for a doctor. It is a quiet, well-made tool for an ordinary hard night.
There is no streak to break and nothing to feel bad about.
What's next
What subscribing
will unlock
Coming soon — accounts & subscriptionA subscription will open the full library: longer timers (30, 45, 60, 90 minutes), more ambiences, other beat programs and narrations, voices, and custom mixes rendered into your own one-tap file. Until then, here is a taste of the sounds that are coming — every clip is about 20 seconds.
- coming soonOcean
- coming soonFan
- coming soonCampfire
- coming soonNight train
- coming soonWind
- coming soonPink noise
The guest session stays free forever — no account, no nags, no tracking. A longer, richer library is what the subscription is for, not a paywall in front of sleep.