HEADPHONES TO BEAT INSOMNIA
TIM ANTOS, 31, a company director, lives in london. he developed a pair of headphones to combat his crippling insomnia. £249.99, kokoon.io
I STARTED suffering with insomnia four years ago. I was working in finance and found it really hard to switch off. Often I’d fall asleep then wake up at 4am and find it impossible to get to sleep again. In the end, I went to a sleep clinic.
There, I found that audio treatments — such as listening to relaxation exercises — helped. But back home it was hard to find headphones comfortable enough to wear in bed, and I didn’t know what to listen to.
As a mechanical engineer, I began to develop headphones that could flex and mould to the shape of the wearer’s ear. But I wanted them to deliver something to actually help someone sleep, too — so I incorporated t i ny EEG (electroencephalography) sensors, which analyse brainwave activity.
A built-in app that connects to your phone works out which part of your sleep cycle you’re in and responds to your sleep patterns with different types of sound. So you might fall asleep to waves crashing on a beach, but once you’re in a deep sleep, the device will lapse into random, indistinct background noises to prevent you being disturbed.
Now, I work for the company full-time. More importantly, I’ve never slept better.
Michael Oko, an ear, nose and throat surgeon at United Lincolnshire Hospitals and the Harley Street Sleeping Disorders Centre, says: ‘EEG sensors are used in sleep clinics, and certainly comfortable headphones playing the right sort of sounds can help you zone out so you fall asleep. ‘ In principle, this is a really smart idea.’