Sleep is an integral part of our lives, and has been so for as long as human race existed. Therefore, it is only natural that modern technology makes some efforts to make sleep more effective, restful and just plain pleasant. Here is a list of modern tech that can help you fall asleep, feel more refreshed in the morning, or sleep less with better results.
1. Smart Mattress Cover
There are many factors that may and will disturb sleep: too low or too high temperature, excessive lighting, and noises to name a few. Eight is a device aimed to make sleep as comfortable and disturbance-free as possible. On the outside, it is a simple mattress cover – but appearances are deceptive. In reality, it is an electronic device seamlessly integrating into the smart home technology. At night, it tracks your sleep cycles and body temperature, warming up or turning on climate control to keep optimal conditions. It can set an alarm clock depending on your sleep cycle, turn the lights on and off, lock and unlock the doors and even automatically turn on the coffee machine in the morning.
2. Memory Foam Mattresses
What can be the most obvious way to influence how we sleep than changing what we sleep on? Memory foam was developed with direct support of NASA to increase the safety of aircraft cushions, but fairly quickly found its way into more mundane applications – for example, mattresses crafted with this technology. Memory foam is a substance that reacts to the human body heat, molding around your body after a few minutes, thus making sleep more comfortable.
3. Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock
Sleep isn’t a homogenous process – it consists of different phases performing different functions. It is also believed that the phase in which you wake strongly affects how well-rested you feel and how tired you are going to get in the course of the day. Human beings weren’t designed to wake up to alarm clocks, which means that the majority of people habitually disrupt their sleep cycles – and this, in the long run, can lead to a plethora of unpleasant side effects. Enter sleep trackers – devices that track phases of your sleep and wake you up so that disruption is minimal. While there are many different sleep trackers on the market, Sleep Cycle is probably the most accessible of them – it is a simple smartphone app that tracks your sleep and wakes you up when it will be the least disruptive for your sleep.
4. Aura Connected Alarm Clock
Aura Alarm Clock analyses your sleep environment (noises, temperature, lighting), and is said to first help you go to sleep with gradually going out orange light (which is supposed to produce a sleep-inducing hormone melatonin) and then wakes you up during your lightest sleep phase with the music of your choice. What is more interesting is that you don’t have to wear anything – a usual prerequisite for diverse sleep trackers and smart alarm clocks. Aura’s sensor is placed under your mattress, from where it analyses your movements, breathing and heart rate during sleep.
5. SleepShield
It is common knowledge that blue light exposure from electronics such as laptops and smartphones at night and in the evening suppress the production of melatonin and makes it harder to fall to sleep. One solution to this problem is SleepShield – a patented sticky cover that can be applied to the screens of your devices to decrease the amount of blue light they give off without harming visibility.
Sleep is a sensitive and important issue. Modern world offers too many ways of disrupting and destroying our healthy sleep – so why not use the very same technology to set things right?
