As a life-long insomniac who is far too well-acquainted with 3am, I’ve tried everything from overpriced valerian bubble bath to CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy to break the negative thought patterns and behaviours which disrupt sleep) and prescription sleeping pills. These have all helped to varying degrees, but not enough.
I don’t usually have a problem falling asleep but, without fail, I wake every two or three hours and often need another hour to return to the land of nod.
The ‘sleep tech’ industry – spanning everything from trackers through to app-controlled mattresses which promise a better night – is booming, valued last year at an estimated £22billion.
But could a new generation of neuro-science-backed sleep devices, which claim to work directly on brainwaves, offer a glimmer of hope to people like me who feel they have tried it all? Could such a device, in effect, retrain my brain to stay asleep?
My experiment began with the £300 Zeez sleep pebble.
A plastic-cased, rechargeable, pebble-shaped device, about six inches long, you simply switch it on and pop it under your pillow. It emits imperceptible electromagnetic pulses which mimic the brainwave frequencies during different stages of sleep.
It starts with pulses at the same frequency as alpha waves, which the brain produces as we fall asleep, progressing through to theta waves (made during light sleep) and, finally, slow delta waves in deep sleep. The Zeez cycles through these frequencies four times, taking nearly seven hours and mimicking the natural cycles of someone who sleeps well.
According to Zeez’s manufacturer, the brain starts to ‘resonate’ with these frequencies, encouraging it to slip into sleepy mode. This is like the phenomenon seen in tuning forks. If two forks in the same space are tuned to the same frequency, when one of them is struck, the other has no choice but to follow suit, or ‘resonate’.
The ‘sleep tech’ industry is booming, valued last year at an estimated £22billion
I don’t usually have a problem falling asleep but, without fail, I wake every two or three hours and often need another hour to return to the land of nod, writes Helen Down
Because of this, when using Zeez no electronics are allowed in the bedroom as these also emit electromagnetic signals which could ‘confuse’ the process. So no wi-fi, unless the router is more than seven metres away. Likewise, no phones, unless on airplane mode. As someone who is pretty neurotic about sleep hygiene, this was already part of my routine anyway.
As for whether such electromagnetic pulses can really penetrate my dense memory foam pillow, the answer – according to Gerry Leo, physics lead at Capital City College in north London – is yes. ‘If the device is emitting very low frequency fields in the brainwave range, then those fields can pass through plastic casing and common pillow materials [with an insignificant reduction in intensity],’ he says.
Zeez’s maker says it can take up to six weeks to be effective.
By week four, I was still waking multiple times. I did feel bouncier come the morning, but I assumed this was a placebo.
One night, though, five weeks in, I forgot to tuck the pebble under my pillow. And, oh boy, did I have a disturbed night. I woke feeling hungover despite no alcohol having passed my lips.
Even though Zeez wasn’t giving me seven solid hours, could it be that the broken sleep I was getting was deeper and more restorative? Professor John Groeger, a sleep researcher at Nottingham Trent University, isn’t wholly convinced. ‘The brain’s electrical activity changes constantly throughout the night, with alpha, theta and delta waves all present at the same time, but in different quantities and in different parts of the brain,’ he says.
‘Without tracking each individual’s activity, how can the device know which type of wave it needs to emit? And how can it adjust to all the natural variations that impact sleep, like a user’s age or sex?’
Room for improvement, then.
Greedy for more, I got my hands on the Somnee headband, developed by a company which was co-founded by Matt Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of the bestselling book Why We Sleep.
Somnee looks similar to a Serena Williams-style sweatband, but in a neoprene-like fabric.
It uses a three-pronged electrode to deliver transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) and sits just above the eyebrows to target the brain’s sleep centres. The theory is that, similar to Zeez, tACS will synchronise brainwaves into optimal rhythms for deep sleep. Unlike the Zeez, however, the Somnee directly stimulates the brain.
The Zeez pebble cycles through our brain frequencies four times, taking nearly seven hours and mimicking the natural cycles of someone who sleeps well
The tracking tech is similar to that used in sleep labs, but on a smaller scale (the Somnee headband uses a three-pronged electrode, whereas a lab may use about 50 electrodes).
Costing $489 (£365) for the headband and a six-month supply of electrodes, it has integrated EEG sensors (electrodes which detect and record the brain’s electrical signals). These, along with AI, map each individual’s ‘brain print’ for personalised tACS stimulation.
My hopes were high. After attaching the electrode to the headband and connecting to the app, I fastened the Somnee around my head. To distract myself from the painless – but unnerving – fizzy sensation on my forehead, I read a book.
Each ‘stim’ (stimulation) session, which needs to be done when it is time to fall asleep, lasts 15 minutes. Halfway through my first session, I felt deliciously drowsy and tried sleeping with the band on (the bonus being it would then track my sleep, too).
Unfortunately, as a side sleeper, it felt too cumbersome. And in waiting for the session to complete before I could remove the band, I effectively woke myself up and undid all the headband’s good work.
Regardless, on that first night, I did only wake once, nodding off again quickly – a good night for me.
But my optimism was short-lived. I’ve spent years training myself to de-phone at night. So having to use the Somnee app at bedtime – and having to stay awake until I could remove the band and turn off my phone – was, for me, problematic, sparking more anxiety. It soon started taking me three hours to fall into patchy sleep.
The company claims that 80 per cent of users report the biggest benefits as coming after session 21. But I was too exhausted to carry on past session 12.
A small clinical trial (funded by the manufacturer) suggests that Somnee is four times more effective for helping people fall asleep and stay asleep than melatonin (a supplement which copies our natural sleep hormone), two times more effective than CBT and 1.5 times more than prescription sleep pills.
I asked Professor Groeger why it didn’t work for me.
He said that by acting more directly on the brain, Somnee has a big advantage over the Zeez sleep pebble. He did, however, also point out that the research on which Somnee is based shows that tACS is more effective on younger people.
‘The younger users are, the more likely it is that tACS will be effective,’ he says. At 53, this was not what I wanted to hear.
And while Professor Groeger is confident from the evidence that this kind of stimulation can induce sleep by slowing down brainwaves, helping to turn off the ‘chatter’ which stops so many of us drifting off, he adds that it may not necessarily help you stay asleep.
‘My hunch,’ he explains, ‘is that if younger people can be helped to get to sleep like this, they’re more likely to stay asleep. And their “sleep system” [the biological mechanisms which regulate the body’s sleep and wakefulness] is strong enough to keep them asleep.
‘Older people, though, have much less slow-wave sleep and a weaker sleep system overall. So it may not work for them because what Somnee is trying to strengthen is already weak.’
In my case, it’s not just my age which is against me, but also a history of sleep anxiety – and messing with my phone at bedtime. Waiting for stim sessions to finish, made me tune into my insomnia more, not less.
As Professor Groeger notes, ‘things that make us worry about sleep are never going to help [with insomnia]’.
I promptly returned to using the Zeez pebble. Pressing a button and popping it under my pillow felt refreshingly uncomplicated.
And even though I’m still jolted awake at ungodly hours by my to-do list, I am convinced enough that Zeez helps me wake up feeling less groggy that I still use it every night.
Like many insomniacs, my problem stems from a messy entanglement of physiological and psychological factors. And, as Professor Groeger points out, there is never any one thing which works for everyone.
As much as I want to be a believer, I fear that for cases like mine that hallowed seven unbroken hours remains a distant dream.
