Sleep better on shift work.
Without the PhD.
AnchorSleep turns your nursing rotation into a daily checklist — when to drink your last coffee, when to dim the lights, when to actually sleep. Built for 12-hour shifts. Works offline. Launching this summer on iOS and Android.
Coming to App Store + Google Play · Built by a solo dev in public · No medical advice, just a checklist
Sound familiar?
The hospital Wi-Fi just died and your last app deleted three weeks of shifts.
You're on hour 11 of a 12-hour shift and a "scientific" app is asking you to read about your suprachiasmatic nucleus.
Your husband still doesn't know when you'll be awake on Saturday.
You took melatonin again last night. Did it help? You genuinely cannot tell.
AnchorSleep was built for the parts of your job no one else writes apps about.
Three steps. That's the whole app.
Tell us your shifts.
Pick from common rotations (3-on/4-off, 4-on/4-off, Panama) or paste them in. Your iOS or Google Calendar works too.
Get a checklist for today.
Caffeine cutoff. Light exposure window. Pre-shift nap, if you need one. Melatonin time, if you use it. Sleep window. All written in plain English.
Follow the checklist. Feel less like a zombie.
Tomorrow's checklist updates automatically based on your next shift.
What other shift sleep apps don't do
Works offline. Always.
Other apps lose your shifts when the hospital Wi-Fi drops. We never do — your data lives on your phone first, syncs to the cloud second.
The full plan, not just a bedtime.
Most apps give you one number: when to sleep. We give you the full day — coffee, light, naps, wind-down — because that's how circadian science actually works.
Built for your rotation.
3-on/4-off. 4-on/4-off. Panama. Continental. We ship with the rotations nurses actually work, not the generic "shift A and shift B" you'll see elsewhere.
iOS and Android, day one.
Most shift-sleep apps only ship on iPhone. We didn't think that was fair to the half of nurses who use Android.
The science, without the PhD
The advice in AnchorSleep is built on the same circadian research used by NASA, the airlines, and Olympic teams — work pioneered by Charles Czeisler and Steven Lockley at Harvard's Division of Sleep Medicine. We just hide the jargon. You don't need to know what a phase response curve is to follow a checklist.
49% of nurses sleep less than seven hours a day. The science of fixing that is well-published. The hard part has always been packaging it for someone with twelve hours left on a shift. That's our whole job.
AnchorSleep provides general wellness information and is not a substitute for medical advice. If you have ongoing sleep difficulties, please consult a healthcare provider.
Free to start. Pay only if it actually helps.
- 7 days of shifts
- Today's checklist
- Sleep logging
- Basic notifications
- Unlimited schedule
- Full history
- Transition-day plans
- All notifications
- Apple Health sync
- Priority support
$20 a year less than Timeshifter. No ads. We don't sell your sleep data — to anyone.
The first 20 nurses get a free year of Pro.
We're looking for 20 shift-working nurses to test AnchorSleep before public launch. Spend 30 minutes giving us feedback during the beta, and you get a free year of Pro plus a permanent founder badge in the app. iOS and Android both welcome.
Questions
Targeting App Store and Google Play within 6 weeks. Beta cohort gets access about 2 weeks earlier. Drop your email above and we'll tell you the exact date.
Yes. The whole app — schedule, checklist, sleep logs — runs on your phone. Cloud sync happens in the background when you have signal, but it's never required for the app to work.
Yes, day one. The app is built in React Native. Same features on both platforms, same launch date.
Timeshifter is excellent and built by Harvard scientists — but it's server-dependent (loses your shifts if you're offline) and assumes you're comfortable with circadian science vocabulary. AnchorSleep works offline, ships with nurse-specific rotation templates, and never asks you to learn anything.
Yes. Sleep data lives on your phone. If you create an account, it syncs to a private database where only you can read it. We never sell or share health data, and we don't train AI on your sleep patterns. Read the privacy policy in the footer.
Mayank — a solo developer with 14 years of experience building React Native and web apps. You can follow the build journey on Twitter / LinkedIn (linked below). The app is independent — no VC funding, no employer pressure to monetise harder than necessary.