Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and a love about things tech. This
Speaker 1: episode is a request from none other than my producer TORII,
Speaker 1: who said I should do an episode related to sleep
Speaker 1: because that's one of her favorite activities. So today we're
Speaker 1: going to look at the intersection of sleep and technology.
Speaker 1: But first, let's talk about the science of sleep for
Speaker 1: a bit, because the tech that is in that sleep
Speaker 1: industry is all supposed to tap into the science of
Speaker 1: sleep in some way or another. So let's get an
Speaker 1: understanding of that first. Now, the average human spends between
Speaker 1: one four to one third of their life asleep. If
Speaker 1: you're TORII, adds closer to fifty fifty. So at the
Speaker 1: end of your life, you could divide your age by
Speaker 1: three and that's how many years you spent snoozing. More
Speaker 1: or less you lay about No, but really, sleep is
Speaker 1: is really important. Until the mid twenty century, the general
Speaker 1: thinking around sleep was that it was just a time
Speaker 1: of rest when your body and your brain kind of
Speaker 1: went into hibernation mode and laid dormant, but in actuality,
Speaker 1: your brain is pretty active when you're sleeping. In fact,
Speaker 1: it can be so active that it can look almost
Speaker 1: identical to an awake brain. It's engaged in activities that
Speaker 1: are necessary to life, and according to Dr Mark Wu,
Speaker 1: a neurologist at Johns Hopkins, those activities are also very
Speaker 1: closely connected to quality of life, so not just making
Speaker 1: life go on, but making the life you have worth living.
Speaker 1: Sleep consists of multiple stages in a cycle that repeats
Speaker 1: several times per night. The first half for first section
Speaker 1: of that cycle would fall into the category of non
Speaker 1: R E M sleep or non RIM sleep. That itself
Speaker 1: has four stages. So in the first stage, the body
Speaker 1: is between being awake and asleep. This is the stage
Speaker 1: you are in when you're first going to sleep. It's
Speaker 1: also the stage you end up in when you're waking up,
Speaker 1: typically unless you've been awakened out of the middle of
Speaker 1: your sleep by something else. In the second stage, you
Speaker 1: are in a light sleep, and at that stage your
Speaker 1: heart rate and your breathing regulate and your body temperature
Speaker 1: begins to drop. The third and fourth stages are deeper sleep,
Speaker 1: and we now think it's these stages where the brain
Speaker 1: experiences the restorative benefit of sleep. This is important for
Speaker 1: the formation of memories, it's important for learning. It helps
Speaker 1: you incorporate the stuff that you've experienced into long term memories,
Speaker 1: and it prepares your brain for the next day so
Speaker 1: that when you encounter new information, you can incorporate that
Speaker 1: as well. Next comes R. E. M. And I do
Speaker 1: not mean the band from Athens, Georgia, although they are great.
Speaker 1: You know, they're a bunch of shiny, happy people. But
Speaker 1: instead I'm talking about rapid eye movement. Now, in that
Speaker 1: stage of sleep, the eyes are moving quickly behind closed lids.
Speaker 1: Brain activity is similar to what you would experience when
Speaker 1: you're awake. This is when you can have intense, emotionally
Speaker 1: charged dreams. Some sleep experts have observed brain activity and
Speaker 1: rem sleep that have exceeded the brain activity of an
Speaker 1: awake person. So it's also in this stage when you
Speaker 1: could experience a phenomenon called sleep paralysis. Now we don't
Speaker 1: know a whole lot about this experience other than it
Speaker 1: can be absolutely unnerving. I've actually experienced this in the past,
Speaker 1: although not recently, a lot of people have had bouts
Speaker 1: of sleep paralysis, and it can really scare you when
Speaker 1: it happens. So, Uh, here's typically what's going on in
Speaker 1: an episode of sleep paralysis. Your brain is aware of
Speaker 1: your surroundings, but your body does not respond to your
Speaker 1: desire to move, So you feel like you're awake, like
Speaker 1: a d percent awake, except that you cannot move at all.
Speaker 1: So this is very unnerving to say the least. It
Speaker 1: also can be accompanied by hallucinations of both a visual
Speaker 1: and an auditory nature. And in fact, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of folklore and a lot of urban legends that are
Speaker 1: based around this phenomena as people have experienced this and
Speaker 1: tried to make sense of it in some way. Uh.
Speaker 1: The mythology behind the succubus is often linked to sleep paralysis.
Speaker 1: There's another one called night hag syndrome, where people have
Speaker 1: said they've imagined a figure of a of a menacing
Speaker 1: woman sometimes perched on their chest, preventing them from being
Speaker 1: able to move. There are others who have interpreted this
Speaker 1: as being visited by aliens, like there were these mysterious
Speaker 1: alien like figures gathered around their bed and they were
Speaker 1: unable to move. They all seem real and it is
Speaker 1: genuinely scary to not be able to move. But from
Speaker 1: what we can tell, this is all based on an
Speaker 1: actual natural phenomenon that happens sometimes when you are aware
Speaker 1: during an R E M stage of sleep, but you
Speaker 1: are not unable to move. There's no supernatural cause for that.
Speaker 1: It's something that just occasionally happens for some people that
Speaker 1: happens more frequently than others. Sometimes it happens during times
Speaker 1: of great stress and anxiety, and other times you might
Speaker 1: not have these problems at all. But why would you
Speaker 1: be paralyzed in the first place, Why would you be
Speaker 1: unable to move? Well? When you go into R E
Speaker 1: M sleep, your body essentially has the sort of shut
Speaker 1: off switch for uh, your your conscious movement. It's probably
Speaker 1: so that we don't hurt ourselves by thrashing around violently
Speaker 1: in response to those vivid, emotionally charged dreams that I
Speaker 1: mentioned that we experienced during R E M sleep. So
Speaker 1: it's our body's way of protecting itself during that part
Speaker 1: of the sleep cycle. Without it, we would be falling
Speaker 1: on a bed or punching the person next to us
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's not. You know, it's not meant to
Speaker 1: be harmful, but it is not a great experience if
Speaker 1: we happen to be aware of our surroundings, it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be, you know, taking effect only when we are
Speaker 1: unconscious and we're not aware of things. So when you
Speaker 1: are aware of everything but you're unable to move, it's
Speaker 1: pretty creepy. By the way, I've heard. One way of
Speaker 1: trying to deal with this is concentrate on making very
Speaker 1: small movements with a part of your body, like your toes,
Speaker 1: and that this can gradually get you out of the
Speaker 1: the stage of sleep so that you are fully awake
Speaker 1: and you don't have that experience anymore. If nothing else,
Speaker 1: you can take your focus off of the hallucinations you
Speaker 1: might otherwise be experiencing. So on a typical night, you'll
Speaker 1: actually cycle through those various stages up to four or
Speaker 1: five times. But also with each cycle, you spend a
Speaker 1: little less time in stages three and four of the
Speaker 1: non r EM sleep, and you spend more time in
Speaker 1: REM sleep. Now, previously scientists thought that REM sleep was
Speaker 1: the stage that was really important, that was restorative, that
Speaker 1: would give you that lovely feeling of being rested when
Speaker 1: you wake up. These days, scholarship suggests that's really those
Speaker 1: third and fourth stages of non rem sleep that are
Speaker 1: the most important. So kind of like how food science
Speaker 1: keeps changing, sleep science keeps changing too, where we think
Speaker 1: we know what's going on, and then as we learn
Speaker 1: more we realize, well, that might not actually be true.
Speaker 1: Maybe this other thing is true. There are two main
Speaker 1: drivers for sleep biological drivers. The first is what we
Speaker 1: call circadian rhythms. These are controlled by what amounts to
Speaker 1: a biological clock in the brain. The clock does not
Speaker 1: just keep time. I mean it does keep time. You
Speaker 1: can separate people from external stimuli and they will fall
Speaker 1: into a natural circadian rhythm. Typically it's a little bit
Speaker 1: longer than twenty four hours that rhythm, so you will
Speaker 1: gradually get off the day night cycle that everyone else
Speaker 1: is on if you are again sequestered from everybody else.
Speaker 1: But it reacts to external stimuli like light cueues. So
Speaker 1: when it gets darker, the brain starts to trigger the
Speaker 1: production of a hormone called melatonin, and when the brain
Speaker 1: senses light, it's begins to to pull back on melatonin production.
Speaker 1: So this is one of the reasons you hear people
Speaker 1: say you should limit the light sources that are in
Speaker 1: your sleeping area so that you can help trigger this
Speaker 1: production of melatonin. It's one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: use a sleep mass actually. Now, as for what melatonin
Speaker 1: actually does for humans, well, it's not completely understood, but
Speaker 1: it might help synchronize circadian rhythms in different parts of
Speaker 1: the body. As this hormone travels throughout the body, it's
Speaker 1: produced by the brain, but then it travels to all
Speaker 1: of our organs and it interacts with tissues that have
Speaker 1: melatonin receptors. Melotonin receptors are special proteins that some tissues have.
Speaker 1: Melatonin probably contributes to initiating and maintaining sleep, and also
Speaker 1: helping our bodies maintain the rhythms necessary for typical activities
Speaker 1: during the day and night cycles. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: making sure everything is ready for action in the daytime
Speaker 1: and ready for rest at night. And it's not essential
Speaker 1: for human sleep, but we tend to sleep better during
Speaker 1: the times that melatonin is being chugged out by our brains.
Speaker 1: So you can sleep during the day and be awake
Speaker 1: at night, it's just not as easy to do. The
Speaker 1: second thing to regulate sleep is called the sleep drive.
Speaker 1: Our bodies require sleep, Our bodies crave sleep throughout the day.
Speaker 1: Our desire for sleep increases, and when it reaches a
Speaker 1: certain level, we gots to sleep or we start suffering
Speaker 1: some pretty nasty drawbacks. Sleep and hunger are in many
Speaker 1: ways similar to one another because our body also increases
Speaker 1: in hunger and we want to eat. However, our body
Speaker 1: goes an extra step when it comes to sleep, because
Speaker 1: no matter how hungry you are, your body doesn't make
Speaker 1: you eat. You make yourself eat, but your body doesn't
Speaker 1: force you to eat. However, if you're super sleepy, your
Speaker 1: body can totally make you go to sleep without you
Speaker 1: choosing for that to happen. Even if you don't want
Speaker 1: to go to sleep at that moment, maybe you're doing
Speaker 1: something important like driving a car. If you're tired enough,
Speaker 1: your body might force you to go through what are
Speaker 1: called micro sleep sessions. During those moments, you'll sleep for
Speaker 1: a couple of seconds at a time, even with your
Speaker 1: eyes open, so you kind of zone out for those
Speaker 1: couple of seconds, which can again be really dangerous depending
Speaker 1: on what you're doing. Also, you might want to take naps.
Speaker 1: If you want to take naps, that's fine, just try
Speaker 1: to limit your naps to less than half an hour,
Speaker 1: especially if it's later in the day because otherwise that
Speaker 1: can throw off your sleep drive and make it harder
Speaker 1: for you to get to sleep at night. So typically
Speaker 1: you want to keep your naps to twenty to thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: especially later in the day. Sleep helps our brains deal
Speaker 1: with input. It promotes what is called brain plasticity. When
Speaker 1: you're low on sleep, you're gonna have problems learning stuff,
Speaker 1: remembering things. You're gonna have that foggy feeling. Sleep also
Speaker 1: is important for other systems not just our brains, like
Speaker 1: our immune systems and our metabolism, So you want to
Speaker 1: get good, regular sleep for good health. In general, the
Speaker 1: sleep requirements are not set in stone for everyone. It's
Speaker 1: not exactly like you can't just say everybody needs seven
Speaker 1: and a half hours or eight hours of sleep. It
Speaker 1: varies from person to person at least a little bit,
Speaker 1: but generally speaking, healthy adults need between seven and nine
Speaker 1: hours of sleep per night if they want to be
Speaker 1: at their best. Kids and teenagers need more sleep than
Speaker 1: adults do, and the older we get in general, the
Speaker 1: less sleep we tend to need. But even senior citizens
Speaker 1: would really only be at their best if they got
Speaker 1: at least seven hours of sleep per night. So we've
Speaker 1: got an activity that takes up a third of our lives,
Speaker 1: and it's important to engage in this activity in order
Speaker 1: for us to maintain a healthy lifestyle. We need sleep
Speaker 1: to be able to function in general. So it should
Speaker 1: come as no surprise that there are tons of products
Speaker 1: out there that target sleep, because it's a no brainer.
Speaker 1: Everybody needs it. So if you can make a product
Speaker 1: that seems to help people do that activity or do
Speaker 1: that activity more efficiently, then you stand to make a
Speaker 1: lot of money because everybody's got to do it, and
Speaker 1: maybe your product actually helps people. That would be the
Speaker 1: ideal situation, of course, that the thing you're selling actually
Speaker 1: does have a positive effect. But some of you may
Speaker 1: already be way ahead of me here. If there's still
Speaker 1: a lot we do not know or understand about sleep,
Speaker 1: it's probably challenging to create products that will work for
Speaker 1: a wide variety of people in a way that legitimately
Speaker 1: helps you sleep. That is in fact the case, or
Speaker 1: appears to be. That's not to say every sleep product
Speaker 1: out there is bunk, but it's good to turn on
Speaker 1: those critical thinking skills when we start looking at sleep technology.
Speaker 1: I'll explain more in a second, but First, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break to thank our sponsor, Dafne la Prince Ringett.
Speaker 1: And I know I'm mispronouncing your name, and I do apologize.
Speaker 1: But Dafne wrote a great piece and Wired recently in
Speaker 1: September two. It's titled sleep Tech is Booming, but It's
Speaker 1: getting weirder and dodgier, and I recommend you check out
Speaker 1: that article and it Daphne quotes Lloyd Price, who is
Speaker 1: a co founder of a company called Zesti. Price said,
Speaker 1: the industry as a whole is now in what we
Speaker 1: call the plateau of productivity within the sleep tech hype cycle. Now,
Speaker 1: the hype cycle is a concept from research firm Gardner,
Speaker 1: and it describes the life cycle of a technology, not
Speaker 1: just sleep tech, but every technology as it goes from
Speaker 1: the initial concept all the way up to widespread mainstream adoption,
Speaker 1: assuming it makes it that far. The typical chart for
Speaker 1: the hype cycle looks like a really big hill on
Speaker 1: a roller coaster ride that then goes into a deep
Speaker 1: dip and then a gradual climb afterward. And it involves
Speaker 1: things like your expectation and your adoption levels. So it
Speaker 1: all starts the innovation trigger or the technological breakthrough that
Speaker 1: gets things started. This would be the initial announcement of
Speaker 1: something really cool and groundbreaking. At this stage, there may
Speaker 1: not be anything that a consumer can get their hands on.
Speaker 1: It may all be in the prototype or conceptual stage,
Speaker 1: and people start hearing about and they get interested in it.
Speaker 1: That leads into the peak of inflated expectations. This is
Speaker 1: the high point on that roller coaster hill that I
Speaker 1: was talking about. It's typically a pretty sharp, steep hill,
Speaker 1: and this is where publicity gets people really really excited
Speaker 1: for this technology. Everyone is at a fever pitch. They
Speaker 1: think this technology has the potential to change everything. There
Speaker 1: may not be an actual product out there, or maybe
Speaker 1: there's only a very limited number and they can only
Speaker 1: be adopted by like bleeding edge technology fans who have
Speaker 1: a lot of in home that they can use to
Speaker 1: buy this kind of stuff. But typically it doesn't it's
Speaker 1: not widely available enough for for the average person to
Speaker 1: get experience with it. Next, after the peak of inflated
Speaker 1: expectations comes the trough of disillusionment. This is that dip
Speaker 1: I was talking about, a low point in the life cycle.
Speaker 1: This happens when people realize that the thing they got
Speaker 1: the actual product they were able to buy doesn't meet
Speaker 1: those high expectations they had. Now, high expectations can come
Speaker 1: from multiple sources. They can come from pr folks who
Speaker 1: are really promoting the heck out of a technology. So
Speaker 1: it could be a misrepresentation of the tech, or it
Speaker 1: could be a misinterpretation on the part of the consumer.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily the fault of publicists, although they do
Speaker 1: tend to really tout the the positives of technology. I mean,
Speaker 1: their job is to sell stuff. So I'm reminded of
Speaker 1: virtual reality, both when it had its initial run in
Speaker 1: the ninety nineties and the more recent attempts with stuff
Speaker 1: like the Oculus and the Vive products. Those products are
Speaker 1: still around, but I say that they failed to deliver
Speaker 1: upon some of the unrealistic expectations that we had built
Speaker 1: up around them, and as a result, they had to
Speaker 1: go through this trough period, the trough of disillusionment. Next
Speaker 1: would be the slope of enlightenment. That's when we start
Speaker 1: to see implementations of this technology that actually makes sense
Speaker 1: and they have real value. They may not remotely come
Speaker 1: close to meeting the incredible expectations we had had previously,
Speaker 1: but they show how the technology can be used in
Speaker 1: a real practical value added way. Then we finally get
Speaker 1: to the plateau of productivity. That's when we get into
Speaker 1: mainstream adoption of that technology. It becomes a practical part
Speaker 1: of other technologies. Sometimes sometimes it just becomes a feature
Speaker 1: on an existing product as opposed to a standalone thing,
Speaker 1: and that is where sleep technology is now. According to
Speaker 1: Lloyd Price. Then again, he co founded a health company
Speaker 1: that has an interest in sleep technology, so it probably
Speaker 1: would be good news to such a company that we
Speaker 1: have moved into this widespread mainstream adoption. It's hard to argue, though,
Speaker 1: because sleep tech has found its way into lots of
Speaker 1: different products. Many of the early examples of sleep tech,
Speaker 1: many of the ones that are still around now, are
Speaker 1: subsets of a trend called the quantified self. This was
Speaker 1: the trend that spawned all sorts of stuff like activity trackers,
Speaker 1: sleep trackers, technology that would give you data on a
Speaker 1: day to day basis about your activities. It's all about, uh,
Speaker 1: giving you data about your everyday life. The quantified self
Speaker 1: started off as a movement back in two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: and it was it was more or less founded by
Speaker 1: a couple of guys named Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly,
Speaker 1: both of whom worked for Wired magazine, who really championed
Speaker 1: this concept. And it's all about using technology to track
Speaker 1: our personal activities, are day to day behaviors, and then
Speaker 1: give us data about that so that we can, prefer
Speaker 1: ideally use it in some way that benefits us, right
Speaker 1: that we can get a better understanding of who we
Speaker 1: are and what we do, and maybe fine tune our
Speaker 1: behavior so that we're living our best lives. The quantified
Speaker 1: self can involve using technology to gather information all by itself,
Speaker 1: such as a pedometer, like we just wear the pardometer
Speaker 1: and it counts the steps and it might send that
Speaker 1: data somewhere. Or it can also include technology that requires
Speaker 1: some sort of additional human input, like a calorie tracking
Speaker 1: app that would tell you how many calories you've consumed
Speaker 1: versus burned in a day. But in order to do that,
Speaker 1: you have to actually tell the app what you ate,
Speaker 1: so it can estimate the number of calories you've consumed,
Speaker 1: and maybe it consults some other sensors like a pedometer
Speaker 1: to estimate how many calories you have burned, and then
Speaker 1: it can give you the full information afterward. Sleep trackers
Speaker 1: fall into this category of the quantified self technology. These
Speaker 1: are devices they're supposed to monitor your sleep patterns and
Speaker 1: send that data to you in some useful way. So
Speaker 1: how do sleep trackers work well, It kind of depends
Speaker 1: on the technology. There are a few different approaches, but
Speaker 1: the first level of sleep tracking depends heavily on accelerometers
Speaker 1: that obviously measures acceleration. This method of assessing sleep predates
Speaker 1: activity trackers and sleep trackers. It's called actography, and there
Speaker 1: are specialized pieces of equipment called actographs, and they they
Speaker 1: typically look like a watch. You would wear an actograph
Speaker 1: on the risk of your non dominant hand in your
Speaker 1: typical sleep study. The actograph can register and record movements.
Speaker 1: So it's essentially the same thing as activity trackers and
Speaker 1: fitbit trackers. But it's been around for a long time
Speaker 1: and it was largely just the domain of medical establishment,
Speaker 1: not not something you would go out and buy. The
Speaker 1: data that would be gathered from these sleep sessions would
Speaker 1: be analyzed to estimate sleep parameters and tell the sleep
Speaker 1: specialists how well or poorly you slept in a given night.
Speaker 1: And sleep specialists have been using act graphs for several
Speaker 1: years and it's one of the preferred methods for measuring
Speaker 1: sleep activity because it allows the user to sleep in
Speaker 1: their own preferred space, like their own bed, rather than
Speaker 1: having to try and sleep in a lab setting. It
Speaker 1: is not the most accurate method of measuring sleep activity,
Speaker 1: but it's less invasive than the more accurate approaches. According
Speaker 1: to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, actography has been
Speaker 1: well validated for the estimation of nighttime sleep parameters across
Speaker 1: age groups, but the validity of the estimation of sleep
Speaker 1: on set latency and daytime sleeping is limited. Clinical guidelines
Speaker 1: and research suggests that risk actography is particularly useful in
Speaker 1: the documentation of sleep patterns prior to a multiple sleep
Speaker 1: latency test, in the evaluation of circadian rhythm sleep disorders
Speaker 1: to evaluate treatment outcomes, and as an adjunct to home
Speaker 1: monitoring of sleep disordered Breathing actography has also been well
Speaker 1: studied in the evaluation of sleep in the context of
Speaker 1: depression and dementia. Now, it is important to remember that
Speaker 1: this is within the context of sleep specialists working with patients.
Speaker 1: The trackers we tend to rely upon today may give
Speaker 1: us information about our sleep activity, but it's not a
Speaker 1: substitute for a medical professional if there's something wrong going on,
Speaker 1: but it might be a way to alert us that
Speaker 1: there's something we should have checked out. Also, the more
Speaker 1: disrupted your sleep is, the more accurate actography can be
Speaker 1: in telling you what is actually going on. Now, there's
Speaker 1: another side to sleep trackers that is also problematic, and
Speaker 1: that's anxiety some people feel when they're trying to beat
Speaker 1: their high score. As it were. So you typically get
Speaker 1: your sleep feedback data fed to you in some way
Speaker 1: that's related to a grade, and people like getting good
Speaker 1: grades and they hate getting bad grades, and they start
Speaker 1: seeing that they have mediocre grades and they think, well,
Speaker 1: I want to get that score up. That competitive nature
Speaker 1: starts to come through. But this actually can start to
Speaker 1: create anxiety and stress. You're stressing out about getting a
Speaker 1: better grade in sleep. There's actually a name for this.
Speaker 1: It is orthosomnia. Now, literally that word would mean correct sleep,
Speaker 1: but it's being used to describe people who have an
Speaker 1: unhealthy fixation on achieving that perfect night's sleep to beat
Speaker 1: last night's score. Oh, it's so important to me. And
Speaker 1: then ironically that can actually prevent you from getting even
Speaker 1: a good night's sleep, let alone the perfect night's sleep,
Speaker 1: And perhaps the more ironic thing is that these users
Speaker 1: could be worried about data that isn't even accurately reflecting
Speaker 1: their sleep to begin with. They could be looking at
Speaker 1: a grade and thinking I can do better than that,
Speaker 1: without knowing that they already have done better than that.
Speaker 1: Fitness trackers that claim to tell you how long you
Speaker 1: spent during each stage of sleep in that cycle I
Speaker 1: was talking about earlier are not really reliable because they
Speaker 1: measure movement, but sleep cycles don't depend on movements so
Speaker 1: much as they depend upon brain activity, so fitness trackers
Speaker 1: are literally not measuring the activity that's actually linked to
Speaker 1: the various stages in the sleep cycle. There measuring movement,
Speaker 1: not brain activity. Fitness trackers tend to give you are
Speaker 1: a pretty high margin of error when it comes to
Speaker 1: tracking how much time you actually spent sleeping, not to
Speaker 1: mention the quality of the sleep, so you can't even
Speaker 1: really trust most sleep trackers to give you an accurate
Speaker 1: reading of how long you slept, let alone how well
Speaker 1: you did it, so you could be obsessing over a
Speaker 1: grade that isn't reflecting reality in the first place. Now
Speaker 1: these days, sleep trackers are finding their way into lots
Speaker 1: of other products, including pads that are supposed to slip
Speaker 1: under your mattress or special pillows that monitor the movement
Speaker 1: of your head throughout the night. But they all pretty
Speaker 1: much tracked the same thing. They're all tracking movement. Some
Speaker 1: of them do have nifty features that let you tie
Speaker 1: together the sleeptracker with automated systems in your home. So
Speaker 1: let's say it's the morning and you're starting to move around,
Speaker 1: and it's indicating that, hey, this guy has probably woken
Speaker 1: up because he's moving around a lot, and so it
Speaker 1: starts to send commands to other automated systems and turns
Speaker 1: the lights on or opens up the blinds, or just
Speaker 1: the thermostat, or start your coffee maker. But it seems
Speaker 1: to me those products are still making promises about giving
Speaker 1: you detailed information on your sleep cycles that might not
Speaker 1: be totally realistic. When we come back, we'll look at
Speaker 1: some devices that are marketed as sleep trackers that don't
Speaker 1: even require you to wear a device on your body.
Speaker 1: So how do they track your sleep? You'll have to
Speaker 1: listen carefully, But first let's take a quick break to
Speaker 1: thank our sponsor. So there are a couple of newer
Speaker 1: products that have hit the market. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: name them, but there are a couple of different ones
Speaker 1: that hit the market recently that don't require contact in
Speaker 1: order to track your sleep. So what are they doing.
Speaker 1: They're actually using radio waves to monitor your sleep activity.
Speaker 1: And you might think, what the heck does that mean. Well,
Speaker 1: they rely upon essentially the same approach as radar, only
Speaker 1: they're using different radio frequencies at very very low power,
Speaker 1: so it's there's nothing harmful going on. It's using radio
Speaker 1: frequencies at a power that's even lower than say, bluetooth.
Speaker 1: The devices, there are a couple of different ones out there.
Speaker 1: We'll send radio signals. Those signals collide with objects in
Speaker 1: the space I eat you, and then the radio signals
Speaker 1: bounce back and go back to the device, which then
Speaker 1: picks up that information, and when you're moving, whether you're
Speaker 1: moving toward or away, it will actually quote unquote know
Speaker 1: that you are moving because of the nature of those
Speaker 1: radio signals. This is all due to the Doppler effect.
Speaker 1: We've learned about this in tech stuff before. But what
Speaker 1: it means is that if you're moving toward the source
Speaker 1: of radio waves, so let's say you're tossing in your
Speaker 1: sleep and you turn and you're turning toward this device
Speaker 1: as it's sending radio waves to you, and you're moving
Speaker 1: towards those radio waves. When they bounce off you and
Speaker 1: go back to the device, they're a little compressed, they're
Speaker 1: a little closer together those those wavelengths. Then the so
Speaker 1: the frequency has increased slightly because you moved closer. You
Speaker 1: moved toward the source of those radio waves. So when
Speaker 1: it picks it up the device, it says, oh, this
Speaker 1: joker's moving towards me. If you were moving away, then
Speaker 1: the radio waves would be a little elongated, to be
Speaker 1: a little longer than they were when they were sent out.
Speaker 1: So now the device is saying, oh, that's joker is
Speaker 1: moving away from me. Now this this guy needs some sleep.
Speaker 1: He's tossing all over the place, might be re enacting
Speaker 1: WrestleMania two thousand right there in bed sucker. So you
Speaker 1: then have some software that analyzes all this data, and
Speaker 1: then it presents that data in an app that sorts
Speaker 1: out your sleep supposedly by cycle. The devices are essentially
Speaker 1: tracking your breathing and your movements, so it can actually
Speaker 1: detect your breathing as well through the same process. So
Speaker 1: you could argue then away they're slightly more advanced than
Speaker 1: your basic actograph because acto graphs, the basic ones don't
Speaker 1: take your breathing into account. They're just measuring your movement.
Speaker 1: But again, since your sleep cycle rely more on brain
Speaker 1: activity than on movement, it might not provide the most
Speaker 1: accurate data other than telling you what you might already know,
Speaker 1: which is that you had a rough night, you weren't
Speaker 1: able to settle down very easily. Chances are you know
Speaker 1: that already. Well, maybe that's not a problem. Maybe you
Speaker 1: just want to know in general how well you're sleeping.
Speaker 1: You might get a good enough idea about that from
Speaker 1: these various trackers. But then again, like I said, if
Speaker 1: you're not sleeping well, you probably already know it just
Speaker 1: because you feel tired, you feel a little foggy. You
Speaker 1: probably have other indications already that you weren't sleeping well,
Speaker 1: So you don't necessarily need a device to say, hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, you didn't sleep well last night because
Speaker 1: you feel it. So your mileage may vary with the
Speaker 1: utility of these devices. But what about technology that's meant
Speaker 1: to help you go to sleep, not just track your sleep,
Speaker 1: but lull you into sleep. Well, again, I would recommend
Speaker 1: keeping your s teptical hat on when you look at
Speaker 1: this technology that's meant to help people get to sleep.
Speaker 1: It's not to say that companies or inventors that are
Speaker 1: creating this technology are specifically trying to trick you or
Speaker 1: scam you. They may be sincere in their efforts, but
Speaker 1: many of those inventions are coming from people who they
Speaker 1: come up with a cool idea. They come up with
Speaker 1: a way of making that idea reality, creating a gadget
Speaker 1: that actually works based upon that idea. But they aren't
Speaker 1: usually sleep experts. So while they're making something that quote
Speaker 1: unquote works the way they intended, it doesn't necessarily work
Speaker 1: in cooperation with human physiology. So their gadget may do
Speaker 1: what it was supposed to do on a technical level,
Speaker 1: but it may not be actually useful in a practical level.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about some of these things. Um, and again,
Speaker 1: I am not a sleep expert. I cannot say definitively
Speaker 1: whether these devices work or don't work. I'm just saying
Speaker 1: incorporate some critical thinking. So at c the company Phillips
Speaker 1: introduced a thing I guess you could call it a headband.
Speaker 1: It looks really funky. It's called the smart sleep and
Speaker 1: that's all one word, smart sleep. You'd wear it, and
Speaker 1: it's supposed to monitor your brain activity during sleep. Now,
Speaker 1: since that's the real indicator for which sleep cycles you're
Speaker 1: passing through it in any given time, that a part
Speaker 1: at least is right on track, right, you want to
Speaker 1: measure brain waves more than movement or breathing because it's
Speaker 1: going to tell you more accurately how much time you
Speaker 1: spent in each stage of the sleep cycle. However, I
Speaker 1: don't know how accurately it can read brainwave activity. That's
Speaker 1: actually a little tricky. You know. If you're using an
Speaker 1: e G, you would typically use electrodes placed in specific
Speaker 1: spot along the scalp, and there are even versions of
Speaker 1: that that go beyond that. They require implanted electrodes. That's
Speaker 1: talking about surgery in that case too, surgically implant sensors.
Speaker 1: But there are lots of e G s that just
Speaker 1: use the surface level sensors. These sensors have to be
Speaker 1: pretty sensitive to pick up brainwave activity because they have
Speaker 1: to detect it through the skull, and typically they can
Speaker 1: only detect the surface level activity, not anything deeper. Because again,
Speaker 1: you've got a pretty good insulator with that skull there.
Speaker 1: So this consumer level device is supposed to monitor those
Speaker 1: brain waves and detect the various stages in the sleep cycle,
Speaker 1: and when you enter slow wave sleep, the device begins
Speaker 1: to play customized audio tones through special bone conduction speakers.
Speaker 1: Bone conduction means that the speakers are going to send
Speaker 1: vibrations of sound directly through your skull so that they
Speaker 1: travel to your inner ear without having to play through
Speaker 1: the air, so that the sound travels through your ear canal. Ideally,
Speaker 1: that would mean that if you happen to sleep in
Speaker 1: the same room as other people, those other people are
Speaker 1: not going to hear those sleep tones going off in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night because it's going to be
Speaker 1: playing it directly against your skull. Does it work, I
Speaker 1: have no idea. I am skeptical. I tried to search
Speaker 1: for any clinical trial information about this, because it maybe
Speaker 1: it does work, but I couldn't find any actual clinical trials.
Speaker 1: I did find a proposed study, so it sounds like
Speaker 1: it's one that has not yet actually happened. That proposed
Speaker 1: study comes from Phillips itself, and the description of it
Speaker 1: does not fill me with confidence. Honestly, the description of
Speaker 1: the study begins like this quote. This study is a
Speaker 1: non randomized, unblinded, uncontrolled case series clinical trial validating the
Speaker 1: smart Sleep product including sleep Mapper app in the home setting.
Speaker 1: In the quote, so, the fact that it's non randomized, unblinded,
Speaker 1: and uncontrolled does not seem like it's a very scientifically
Speaker 1: rigorous approach. Those are all flags for me. I would
Speaker 1: much prefer I randomized, blinded and controlled test where you
Speaker 1: have a control group, you don't know each subject wouldn't
Speaker 1: know whether he or she is in the control group
Speaker 1: or the the actual test group. They would be randomly selected.
Speaker 1: All of that would be much better if you want
Speaker 1: scientific rigor. However, when you realize the purpose of the
Speaker 1: study is really to legitimize a product that's already out
Speaker 1: on the market, you start to get the feeling that
Speaker 1: perhaps Phillips isn't super invested in making sure it has
Speaker 1: the scientific chops to back up the claims. But that's
Speaker 1: all guesswork on my part though. That's just the skeptic
Speaker 1: and cynic in me talking, So it doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: the product doesn't work. I'm just skeptical, and I suggest
Speaker 1: people use critical thinking. But hey, what about a sleep robot? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're ready to hear this one. Tarry Tary is really
Speaker 1: excited about hearing about the sleep robot. So the sleep robot,
Speaker 1: you're probably already imagining some sort of you know, maybe
Speaker 1: like a like a robo Teddy Bear, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: maybe it's a robot that's fully sized, humanoid robot that
Speaker 1: can you know, spoon you. But no, it kind of
Speaker 1: looks like a giant kidney bean made out of fabric,
Speaker 1: like a plush kidney bean that weighs about four pounds.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to hug it when you're going to sleep,
Speaker 1: so you do kind of spoon it. You lay on
Speaker 1: your side and you hug this this kidney bean like,
Speaker 1: you know, like we all want to when we go
Speaker 1: to bed at night. We're just like, God, I wish
Speaker 1: I had an enormous kidney bean I could cut all right. Now,
Speaker 1: Well now you can uh with this somnos sleep robot.
Speaker 1: The robot. Some people argue it's being very generous to
Speaker 1: call it a robot has a speaker, and it has
Speaker 1: a smart card reader, so you can actually store music
Speaker 1: on a smart card and then insert the smart card
Speaker 1: into the robot and it will play back whatever music
Speaker 1: you've put in there. So if you want, you know,
Speaker 1: nice soothing classical music, or some very gentle electronic music,
Speaker 1: or maybe you want Andrew w. K telling you to
Speaker 1: party in your sleep, you could do that. And it
Speaker 1: has a mechanism also inside of the thing that simulates breathing.
Speaker 1: So now you've got a breathing kidney bean clutched to
Speaker 1: your chest. Now, the idea is that you would hug
Speaker 1: this thing and you would slowly try to adjust your
Speaker 1: breathing so that your breathing rate would match the pattern
Speaker 1: that the device had set, and this would help you
Speaker 1: relax and bring on sleep. The device is supposed to
Speaker 1: shut off automatically, wants a de text that the user
Speaker 1: has fallen asleep, so it doesn't work well. It's based
Speaker 1: off principles that have been studied by sleep specialists, including
Speaker 1: this method of controlling your breathing in order to become
Speaker 1: more relaxed. Next, there are a lot of meditation techniques
Speaker 1: out there that focus on breathing and it's a good
Speaker 1: way to prepare your body for sleep. But whether or
Speaker 1: not this particular device works, I don't know. It is
Speaker 1: at least based on those principles, however, so UH, you
Speaker 1: might find a device helpful in making sure you're breathing properly,
Speaker 1: that you're guiding your breathing to match the pattern that
Speaker 1: this thing sets, but typically you could do that by
Speaker 1: yourself if you really wanted to UM. It requires a
Speaker 1: lot of focus and it may require a little practice
Speaker 1: to get to that, and you might even require listening
Speaker 1: to like a guided meditation track to help you set
Speaker 1: the right pace for your breathing to help relax and
Speaker 1: bring on sleep. But that could be significantly cheaper than
Speaker 1: spending fifty dollars on a robot kidney bean. So I
Speaker 1: haven't really covered technology that's meant to help with sleep disorders,
Speaker 1: such as a c PAP machine that's also known as
Speaker 1: a continue with positive airway pressure machine. Those are used
Speaker 1: to help treat sleep apnea. So I'll have to do
Speaker 1: a full episode dedicated to that technology in the future.
Speaker 1: Much of that technology has been through rigorous testing because
Speaker 1: this is technology that falls into the category of medical equipment,
Speaker 1: So most countries require that anything that's being marketed as
Speaker 1: a piece of medical equipment has to reach a certain
Speaker 1: standard of performance to prove that actually does what's supposed
Speaker 1: to do, that's medically beneficial, that uh, it has been
Speaker 1: tested thoroughly to make sure that it's safety use. Otherwise
Speaker 1: it's illegal. The devices I mentioned in this episode really
Speaker 1: aren't medical devices. They might make certain claims that kind
Speaker 1: of tread into the field of medicine a little bit,
Speaker 1: but they typically tend to be very very careful about
Speaker 1: that so that they don't make any outright medical claims
Speaker 1: because that would require them to also go through this
Speaker 1: whole rigorous testing procedure, which could ultimately result in one
Speaker 1: of these products being told or the company is being told,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but this doesn't meet the standards that we
Speaker 1: have set. And then you have a company that has
Speaker 1: invested all this money in a product and it can't
Speaker 1: sell it. So it makes economic sense to not go
Speaker 1: down that pathway. However, it can be somewhat misleading, particularly
Speaker 1: if you are a fairly naive consumer. So again, use
Speaker 1: that critical thinking. Sleep is very very important, and ultimately
Speaker 1: I would argue that if you find something that works
Speaker 1: for you, whether it is scientifically proven to be effective
Speaker 1: or not, ultimately doesn't matter if it works for you.
Speaker 1: If you find that a sleeping robot actually does make
Speaker 1: you sleep better, or that by tracking your sleep you
Speaker 1: are getting better sleep night after night, then by all
Speaker 1: means you should do that just because thing may not
Speaker 1: have scientific evidence to back it as being broadly applicable.
Speaker 1: If it's working for you and you need that sleep,
Speaker 1: and we all know you need that sleep, then you
Speaker 1: know as they do it. Also, I mean, I've done
Speaker 1: in a whole episode about a s m R. And
Speaker 1: while I don't really know if there's any truly scientific
Speaker 1: explanation for the a s m R phenomenon, I do
Speaker 1: find them incredibly relaxing and they do put me to sleep.
Speaker 1: So I use that all the time. I use it
Speaker 1: with my you know, critical thinking skills, but I still
Speaker 1: enjoy them and they still put me to sleep. So
Speaker 1: maybe I'll do another episode about a s m R
Speaker 1: in the future and talk to another a s m
Speaker 1: R artist, because that was a lot of fun that
Speaker 1: last time. In the meantime, if you guys are still awake,
Speaker 1: you haven't used this podcast to lull yourselves into a
Speaker 1: deep sleep, why don't you contact me let me know
Speaker 1: what kind of topics I should cover in the future,
Speaker 1: whether they are technologies, companies, personalities in tech. Maybe there's
Speaker 1: an interview that you would like me to do in
Speaker 1: the future, let me know. You can go to our
Speaker 1: website that is tech Stuff podcast dot com that has
Speaker 1: links to all the ways to contact us, like email
Speaker 1: and social media and all that kind of good stuff.
Speaker 1: Make sure you go to our our store that's at
Speaker 1: t public dot com slash tech Stuff. There you can
Speaker 1: pick up tech stuff merchandise, and maybe you want a
Speaker 1: big T shirt to sleep in. I'd like that because
Speaker 1: every purchase you make goes to help the show. We
Speaker 1: greatly appreciate it, and I'll talk to you again really
Speaker 1: soon for more on this and bathands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is that how stuff works dot com