Digital Savant: Howto use tech to get perfect night’s sleep
Wearable gadgets and fancy beds aim to help consumers in their quest for rest.
Sleep via audio suggestion
The first app I ever used to try to get better sleep was called “pzizz,” which first began as a computer program meant to play you programmed soundtracks. You could listen to ambient music or have a relaxing narrator guide you to relaxation, not unlike a form of light hypnotism.
Since then, “pzizz” has shifted its efforts to mobile phones, but has had trouble keeping its products updated for iOS and Android. For now, it’s not available, but the company says on its website it plans to relaunch the apps and is offering free “sleep soundtracks” at pzizz.com.
The soundtracks were relaxing once you got past the New Age vibe, but my biggest problem with “pzizz” was the necessity of wearing headphones or earbuds (so as not to disturb my wife). The audio gear always caused more sleep problems than the insomnia I’d at times try to cure with “pzizz.” I’m a terrible sleeper. It’s not really the quality. Once I’m out and undisturbed, I REM it up like Michael Stipe. It’s more the quantity. I like to stay up late even when I have to get up early. Now that I have kids and a wake-up time of 6:30 a.m., slumber has gotten scarce and precious.
And those kids have no problem infiltrating the bed, dagger elbows and spear legs flailing around, cutting into my already limited supply.
There is no shortage of advice on how to get better sleep. The National Sleep Foundation, an Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit devoted to waging the battle on behalf of Mr. Sandman, has a website full of tips and tools for children and adults.
The tips are both obvious and mostly things we, as a culture, don’t do very well. How’s your diet? Do you exercise daily? Are your pillows and mattresses comfortable and supportive or cheap and plentiful? Do you have a fixed sleep schedule and relaxing nighttime routine or do you use Twitter? You didn’t drink a grande latte this evening, did you? Are you even taking this seriously? I’m beginning to think you want to have a sleep disorder.
It seems that I’m not alone in Drowsytown. According to the Sleep Foundation, 40 million Americans experience insomnia every year and, in the foundation’s annual “Sleep in America” study, it was revealed that Americans on average get fewer than seven hours of sleep a night during the week. For several years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called lack of sleep a “public health epidemic.”
Being a tech reporter, for the past several years I’ve sought solutions in technology. Whenever a new app or gadget arrived that promised to confront sleep problems with new tech, I jumped at the chance to check it out. Unfortunately, the results have been mostly disappointing. And yes, I recognize the irony in relying on tech products, since in the past few years, it’s been smartphones, slender tablets and the ever-churning empires of Facebook and other social media networks that have kept us awake and overstimulated. I get that.
Here’s what I found.