Waking Up Launches Recovery Program with Dr. Andy Galpin

Waking Up, the meditation and mental training app founded by neuroscientist & philosopher Sam Harris, announced the launch of Deep Rest Reset, a 14-day sleep and recovery program developed in partnership with human performance scientist Dr. Andy Galpin and his company, Absolute Rest.

Enrollment is now open, with the challenge running June 8–21.

Deep Rest Reset is designed to help participants move beyond sleep tips, passive tracking, and fragmented recovery advice into a structured system for building better rest. The program brings together Galpin’s expertise in physiology, sleep, and recovery science with Waking Up’s guided meditation and attentional training practices.

The program is built around a simple but often overlooked premise: a person can be physically tired while their nervous system remains highly activated, which makes it harder to fall asleep, stay asleep, restore energy, and sustain performance over time.

“When it comes to sleep, being resilient is more scalable than being optimized,” said Dr. Andy Galpin.

The launch reflects a broader shift across fitness, wellness, and digital health. Consumers are increasingly tracking sleep, HRV, recovery scores, and readiness, yet data alone does not necessarily change behavior. Wearables can show people what happened overnight, but they cannot teach the behaviors, routines, and internal skills required to recover more effectively.

“Most people know how to exhaust themselves. Very few have been taught how to actually recover,” said Tom Coburn, CEO of Waking Up. “That is what makes this partnership with Andy so compelling. He brings the physiology and recovery science. Waking Up brings the training layer: guided practices that help people shift from stimulation into rest. Together, we’re creating a more complete approach to sleep, one that combines education, behavior change, and nervous system downregulation in a way people can actually practice.”

Each day of Deep Rest Reset includes a short reflection, a video lesson from Galpin, one concrete behavior change, and a guided Waking Up meditation practice designed to support downregulation and the transition into rest. Daily actions build over two weeks and include changes related to caffeine timing, light exposure, movement, breathing, stimulus reduction, evening routines, and participants’ relationship to sleep scores.

The program also includes optional wearable data analysis through Oura, WHOOP, and Fitbit. Participants who opt in can receive a personalized before-and-after sleep report comparing baseline data to their experience during the challenge.

Participants will also receive access to daily Q&As with Galpin in the Waking Up Community forum, along with a livestream Q&A on June 24. Deep Rest Reset is designed for performance-minded consumers, athletes, busy professionals, and anyone struggling with sleep, stress, burnout, cognitive fatigue, or inconsistent recovery. Deep Rest Reset includes daily video lessons, 14 compounding behavior changes, nightly guided Waking Up meditations, a printable daily reflection sheet, optional wearable data analysis, community access, and 30 days of full Waking Up app access for new users.

For Waking Up, the launch marks a continued expansion into structured, expert-led programs that combine education, guided practice, community engagement, and behavior change. For the broader fitness and wellness market, Deep Rest Reset points to a growing opportunity in recovery experiences that move beyond content libraries, isolated tracking, and single-modality solutions.

Deep Rest Reset is available at wakingup.com/deeprestreset.