Technology which could help you get a better night’s sleep
Four examples of the clever technology which really could be a cure for insomnia and help you get a better night’s sleep this summer…
When it comes to things promoted as beneficial for a good night’s sleep, technology is not usually the first to spring to mind. In fact, we’re often warned off engaging with gadgets in the lead up to bedtime because many over-stimulate the brain and make it harder for us to switch off and drift off. Natural remedies, soothing creams or even sleep medicine are probably the first things people would reach for in their quest for insomnia treatment, but smart sleep tech is now revolutionising the way we sleep and could be a magic bullet for those suffering from poor quality sleep or having trouble falling asleep.
Here are four examples of the clever technology which really could be a cure for insomnia and help you get a better night’s sleep this summer…
The Sense with Sleep Pill
A clever and attractive little gizmo, the Sense unit is a sleep tracker which clips onto your pillow and receives information from the Pill, which spends your sleeping hours gathering data on how much movement you make, the room temperature, ambient light and noise levels. The idea is that it can then tell you the adjustments you ought to make to your sleep environment in order to help you get a better night’s kip. It’s pleasing on the eye but the ‘relaxing’ ambient sounds can be a distraction when you’re trying to drift off and the data it gathers is not always that useful.
The Misfit Beddit
Sleep trackers are a great way to monitor sleep patterns and the quality of your sleep, and the Beddit sensor from Misfit is designed to slip between the sheets with you. Like many sleep trackers, the ultra-thin sensor is unobtrusive and uses low energy Bluetooth to feed the data it gathers back to your smartphone, then it wakes you up gently during a lighter phase in your sleep pattern.
The Kokoon Headphones
A world-first, these sleep sensing headphones tune into your body as you begin to drift off to sleep and adjust the volume of the music you’re listening to accordingly. Throughout the night they monitor your stages of sleep and then wake you up naturally at the right point in your sleep cycle, meaning you feel more refreshed. They’re also carefully designed for comfort and won’t dislodge during the night, while the sound-cancelling properties mean no external noise can get in to disturb you during the night.
The Sleepace Reston
Slipping beneath your under sheet so there’s nothing to wear, the Reston records heart and respiratory rates as you snooze as well as gathering data on your sleep pattern. It then provides you with an overall ‘sleep score’ for the night and gives advice on how to improve sleep quality — ultimately just a number cruncher, then, but sometimes it’s just nice to know. A very clever little gadget, yes, but because it doesn’t sense when you fall asleep or wake up, you have to start and stop the recording process manually.
While there’s no simple answer to the question of how to cure insomnia, sleep technology has certainly come on in leaps and bounds in the past couple of years. With more and more people taking an interest in sleep training, the science of sleep and the health benefits a good night’s rest can have, sleep tech is an exciting and growing field.
Studies have found that falling asleep to music or soothing ambient sounds has a measureable beneficial impact on the overall quality of sleep, because it lowers the heart and respiratory rates and sends you gently into the high quality rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep which is the most rewarding and refreshing.
The best wearable technology tunes into your body and monitors your sleep pattern so that it knows exactly when to wake you up, and waking up naturally means starting the day right, feeling more awake and alert. So technology has gone from being the enemy of sleep to one of its closest allies — if you’re looking for a better night’s kip over the warm summer months, investing in some clever sleep technology might be a better bet than reaching for the Night Nurse.
