Sleep health equipment

It has a clear auxiliary effect on 80% of people with sleep problems caused by mild and behavioral triggers. It can only be used as a monitoring reference for sleep disorders caused by organic diseases and severe mental triggers. There is no all-purpose instrument that can "radically cure insomnia".

When I was working on the Q4 project last year, my sleep latency exceeded 2 hours for more than three months in a row. I could not count the number of days I checked my phone with my eyes open at 3 a.m.. I bought three smart bracelets of different brands, a CES microcurrent sleep aid, and a white noise sleep lamp with gradient light. I did get real benefits after stepping through the traps.

To tell an interesting story, when I attended a sleep health industry salon last year, a clinical sleep doctor and a product manager of consumer sleep hardware almost had a quarrel. Clinical teachers took control data from their department: among 200 subjects who simultaneously wore consumer-grade bracelets and underwent polysomnography (PSG, the current gold standard for sleep monitoring), the error in the deep sleep time monitored by the bracelets could reach up to 37%, which has no clinical reference value at all. Many users got more anxious and slept worse after receiving the "low deep sleep rate" warning from the bracelets. Hardware product managers were not convinced and took out their user survey data: 72% of users took the initiative to adjust their habit of staying up late and checking their phones before going to bed after using sleep monitoring equipment, and the average time it took to fall asleep was shortened by 18 minutes. For ordinary users, what they want is not medical data accurate to the minute, but a clear behavioral feedback: Oh, it turns out that after I drank milk tea yesterday, I lay down for 3 hours before falling asleep. It turns out that I finished watching short videos at 1 a.m. and woke up three times throughout the night. In fact, there is nothing wrong with what both sides said, but their positions are different and their appeals are naturally different.

In fact, the sleep health instruments now available to everyone are basically divided into two directions: monitoring and intervention. No one is better than anyone else, only whether it suits you or not. For example, my mother always feels uncomfortable when wearing a bracelet and likes to toss and turn when sleeping, so I bought her a sleep monitoring pad that is placed under the mattress. It can measure the number of times she turns over and wakes up at night without wearing any equipment. She has COPD, and she used to wake up in the middle of the night and couldn't remember it. She used the pad for half a month and saw an average of 4 times a night in the report, so she took the initiative to go to the hospital to adjust the oxygen flow rate at night. Now the number of times she wakes up is reduced to once, and her sleep quality is much better.

Interventional devices are even more controversial. My friends use the same CES microcurrent sleep aid. Some people say that it is so crispy when clamped on their earlobes that they can’t open their eyes in ten minutes. Some people feel nothing after using it for half a month. They say it’s purely IQ tax. My own experience after using it is that this thing works more like an "attention diverter" - if you are lying in bed and can't stop thinking, your mind is full of unfinished work and details of the quarrels with people during the day. The weak sense of electricity can draw your attention from your wandering thoughts to the touch of your earlobes, making it easier to fall asleep. But if you can't sleep because of toothache, rhinitis, or organic problems such as hyperthyroidism, it doesn't matter how many devices you use. I also bought a white noise sleeping lamp with a warm light gradient before. The house I rented before faced the street, and garbage trucks would always pass by in the middle of the night. I used to be woken up by the sudden sound of horns and couldn't fall asleep again. I turned on the sleeping lamp and played the white noise of the rain. It can cover most of the sudden noises, and I can fall asleep quickly even if I wake up. It is better for me than melatonin, but my best friend is very sensitive to light and can't fall asleep even if I turn on a night light. I gave it to her and returned it to me after two days of use.

I have to mention the pitfalls I have stepped on. Previously, I was attracted by a "bioresonance sleep device" that cost more than 1,000 yuan when I was watching short videos. It was said to be able to 100% increase the time of deep sleep. After I bought it, I couldn't even find the medical device registration number. After using it three times, it was left in a corner and collected dust. If you really want to buy interventional equipment, first go to the website of the Food and Drug Administration to check whether there are Class II medical devices registered. If there are no registered medical devices, don't touch them no matter how clever you are, they will basically charge IQ tax.

To be honest, sleep health equipment is just a tool, no different from the dumbbells you use for fitness or the vocabulary books you use to learn English. If you buy it and don’t use it, it’s definitely useless. If you use it but still stay up until two or three o’clock every day and drink ice cream before going to bed, it’s useless. If you really can't fall asleep even if you lie down for two hours for more than a month and feel drowsy during the day, don't rush to buy a device first. Go to the hospital's sleep department to check out whether there are any organic or emotional problems. The device is always auxiliary. If you really want to sleep well, you still need to rely on a regular schedule and a stable state.