3 ms·

On the linked page and here you are very wordy about existing advice not being the right way to think about things. You could use far fewer words by just expla

On the linked page and here you are very wordy about existing advice not being the right way to think about things. You could use far fewer words by just explaining what you know and are doing explicitly instead of obliquely. People don’t need to “think differently”, they just need to know what you are doing and why in non-abstract terms. I don’t know if this is a writing habit issue or a staged reveal issue, but I suggest just being direct. > Sleep hygiene is the bus that takes you to the gym, it's not the workout. What am I supposed to do with stuff like this? Nobody would disagree. All the abstract and indirect communication isn’t necessary. It’s just fluff. (IMHO) However, like millions of other, I am very glad to hear of any activity like yours to find other ways to address sleep issues. I wish you great success.

al_borland 1y ago
Exactly. This is what I’m looking for. The way it’s being talked about right now, I’m preparing for the sleep equivalent of a magnetic bracelet, or a 5G blocking amulet.
- pedalpete 1y ago
  Ouch! But I appreciate the feedback, as I just stated in another comment. If you look on our website, we describe the process of increasing the synchronous firing of neurons which are the defining feature of deep sleep and the foundation of health. Unfortunately, we thought we'd have FDA regulatory approvals prior to launch, but we won't, which means we can't legally point to any specific biomarkers or physiological processes. It's a bit of a strange rule, because if the person was conscious while we provided the stimulation, we can say whatever we want, but because they are unconscious, we have to kinda dance around it. I'm still working on how we can clearly say what we do, while staying within the regulatory limitations. It's a big part of why I'm putting stuff like this out now. Your feedback has been really helpful, and I appreciate it.
  - al_borland 1y ago
    Sorry. I hope you can understand the skepticism. There are a lot of people in the health space just looking to make a quick buck, so my BS meter is always on high (as are many others). This is something you’ll need to contend with at launch. I’m not saying this is you, but extraordinary claims will always meet resistance, especially if it doesn’t seem like something is being hidden. I just took a look at more of the site. I’m not sure if changes were made based on feedback, or if the site has remained the same, but it mentions tones being used to single the brain to adjust. This was what I was looking for, but you seemed to dance around it in the comments (or maybe I somehow missed it in the blog post and comments?). If you can mention it on the website, I’m assuming it’s not part of the FDA restriction. Having learned that, I’d have a follow up question. I sleep with a white noise machine. Others may live in a city with street noise at all hours of the night. Will something like a white noise machine, or street noise, mask (or interfere with) the tones the headband is making, or dampen the impact it has? I wouldn’t want to give the white noise up, as it has helped me a lot, especially in unfamiliar environments. It gives my brain something neutral to focus on while trying to fall asleep, instead of activating at every little house or street noise that might be going on. One of my biggest issues is going to bed and then falling asleep. If I fail to do that effectively, I wouldn’t even get to the part where the headband could do its thing. If it takes longer to fall asleep using this, does the effectiveness mean a person can feel as rested, with similar performance (memory, etc) on less sleep? The blog stressed how time sleeping is the wrong metric, but would this cut the amount of sleep a person needs, or would they still sleep for a similar duration, just with better quality? I don’t think sleep duration can be thrown out, as people need to organize their life around sleep.
    - pedalpete 1y ago
      100% I understand the skepticism, and I actually invite it! There is so much snake oil, and BS, it's a big issue we need to address. The current website is not regulatory safe, but because we aren't selling yet, we're at little risk. So you're seeing our old website. The new one unfortunately can't talk about deep-sleep, slow-waves, etc. We can talk about timing to brain activity, and that sort of "talking around what we're doing". If falling asleep is your biggest issue, than what we are currently offering is not for you. We're talking to other researchers (there is a bunch of neuro in our office), but the "fall asleep faster" stuff I've seen is mostly nonsense. BTW, I'm a life-long insomniac, that's how I got into this. We try to stay away from the "sleep less" terminology. Yes, your brain functions better as a result of stimulation. This has been shown in multiple studies, but the position we like to take is that I'm not the police of your sleep time. You decide the time you have and how sleep fits into your life, we ensure that time is as restorative as possible. This fits with young parents, shift-workers, etc. Some insomniacs will decide that this is how they want to deal with the lack of sleep, but I'm not putting insomnia as a primary target because we can't answer the primary complaint of not being able to fall asleep. As far as white-noise machine, it shouldn't affect the stimulation at all. People often ask us "what does it sound like" but the sound itself is only 1/10th of a second or less. The volume is important. Not loud enough, and your brain will ignore it, too loud, and it will wake you up, so we are constantly adjusting the volume based on the brain activity we are reading in real-time. The sound would/should be perceived as louder than your white-noise maker. It's possible if your white-noise maker is REALLY loud, the speaker just might not have enough power to overcome that, but I think that's unlikely. Internally we're talking about having noise, podcasts, etc being available to be played while you're trying to fall asleep, and once we've detected you are asleep, we turn that off, and move into stimulation mode, however, we have to be aware of battery consumption (bone-conduction uses a not insignificant amount of power), and that Apple doesn't expose BLE Audio to devices other than AirPods, which adds to the battery drain. We have some solutions to this, but it may be a post-launch update.
pedalpete 1y ago
Thanks for that feedback, and this is something we are currently struggling with. If you look on our website, we describe the process of increasing the synchronous firing of neurons which are the defining feature of deep sleep and the foundation of health. Unfortunately, we thought we'd have FDA regulatory approvals prior to launch, but we won't, which means we can't legally point to any specific biomarkers or physiological processes. It's a bit of a strange rule, because if the person was conscious while we provided the stimulation, we can say whatever we want, but because they are unconscious, we have to kinda dance around it. I'm still working on how we can clearly say what we do, while staying within the regulatory limitations. Is that the sort of thing you're looking for? Or maybe you are correct that it is my writing style that is the issue. I find for many people giving them a simple analogy they can latch on to makes it fairly simple. I don't think most people do understand that sleep hygiene isn't the activity that improves sleep. Most people think sleep is when they're brain and body are inactive, it's "rest", but in fact, it is anything but.
- Nevermark 1y ago
  I wouldn't keep downplaying sleep hygiene. It is real: 1. Lots of people are doing obvious things that clearly prevent them from getting good sleep: Alcohol, no exercise, or exercise to close to bedtime, bright screen time right before bed, drinking too much water and waking up, no regular bed time so body is always confused, not actively doing something with stress they take to bed with them, bedroom too warm, ... on and on. 2. Lots of people have benefited from not doing these unhelpful things. You might frame things as: ----- Poor sleep undermines almost everything we do, reducing motivation, lowering cognitive performance, and interfering with our social and professional lives. Poor sleep contributes significantly to both mental and physical health issues, and reduce lifespans. It is fair to say, that widespread sleep problems not only hold millions of individuals back, but society as a whole. Current wisdom is useful, as far as it goes. But it hasn't been enough. Sleep hygiene is great at removing barriers to good sleep, but our modern world bears little resemblance to the habitats and habits our bodies evolved to thrive in. All that complexity makes perfect hygiene impossible. And even with great hygiene, many people still have trouble getting quality sleep. But our team has had a profound insight, that we couldn't walk away from. There are other ways to help sleep than simply avoiding sleep disrupters or sleeping in late. Our team's unique vision is to pro-actively assist the body as it sleeps. To improve sleep quality, independent of sleep duration problems or other issues. This is a promising new, and complementary, approach to improving sleep. Our team has been engaged in fascinating work, developing a better understanding of the practicalities our brains deal with as they perform their vital sleep duties. But we are even more excited that those revelations are helping us design potential therapeutic interventions that can actively assist our brain to help us. And most of all, we are thrilled that those potential interventions in sleep quality, already in the works, may benefit individuals and society so profoundly. Are we being audacious or too earnest to say we have a dream? Well we do! We have a dream. ----- So, being complementary to sleep hygiene is a plus, not a minus. Two pronged attacks on problems are MUCH more powerful and promising, if they are complementary, than solutions that are just substitutions. Also, downplaying established wisdom is a flashing red sign pointing at cooks and scams. Einstein didn't downplay Newton's theory of gravity when he replaced it. Newton's theory was a great improvement over what existed before. Einstein wouldn't have had is own insights without it. All wisdom is a stepping stone to new wisdom, not an impediment. Knowing that sleep hygiene, despite being helpful, is widely recognized as not enough was surely and impetus for you own insights. It wasn't competition, it helped you, and it will still help people, as far as it goes. You may find the certain kinds of hygiene magnify the benefits of your work.

al_borland 1y ago

Exactly. This is what I’m looking for. The way it’s being talked about right now, I’m preparing for the sleep equivalent of a magnetic bracelet, or a 5G blocking amulet.

pedalpete 1y ago
Ouch! But I appreciate the feedback, as I just stated in another comment. If you look on our website, we describe the process of increasing the synchronous firing of neurons which are the defining feature of deep sleep and the foundation of health. Unfortunately, we thought we'd have FDA regulatory approvals prior to launch, but we won't, which means we can't legally point to any specific biomarkers or physiological processes. It's a bit of a strange rule, because if the person was conscious while we provided the stimulation, we can say whatever we want, but because they are unconscious, we have to kinda dance around it. I'm still working on how we can clearly say what we do, while staying within the regulatory limitations. It's a big part of why I'm putting stuff like this out now. Your feedback has been really helpful, and I appreciate it.
- al_borland 1y ago
  Sorry. I hope you can understand the skepticism. There are a lot of people in the health space just looking to make a quick buck, so my BS meter is always on high (as are many others). This is something you’ll need to contend with at launch. I’m not saying this is you, but extraordinary claims will always meet resistance, especially if it doesn’t seem like something is being hidden. I just took a look at more of the site. I’m not sure if changes were made based on feedback, or if the site has remained the same, but it mentions tones being used to single the brain to adjust. This was what I was looking for, but you seemed to dance around it in the comments (or maybe I somehow missed it in the blog post and comments?). If you can mention it on the website, I’m assuming it’s not part of the FDA restriction. Having learned that, I’d have a follow up question. I sleep with a white noise machine. Others may live in a city with street noise at all hours of the night. Will something like a white noise machine, or street noise, mask (or interfere with) the tones the headband is making, or dampen the impact it has? I wouldn’t want to give the white noise up, as it has helped me a lot, especially in unfamiliar environments. It gives my brain something neutral to focus on while trying to fall asleep, instead of activating at every little house or street noise that might be going on. One of my biggest issues is going to bed and then falling asleep. If I fail to do that effectively, I wouldn’t even get to the part where the headband could do its thing. If it takes longer to fall asleep using this, does the effectiveness mean a person can feel as rested, with similar performance (memory, etc) on less sleep? The blog stressed how time sleeping is the wrong metric, but would this cut the amount of sleep a person needs, or would they still sleep for a similar duration, just with better quality? I don’t think sleep duration can be thrown out, as people need to organize their life around sleep.
  - pedalpete 1y ago
    100% I understand the skepticism, and I actually invite it! There is so much snake oil, and BS, it's a big issue we need to address. The current website is not regulatory safe, but because we aren't selling yet, we're at little risk. So you're seeing our old website. The new one unfortunately can't talk about deep-sleep, slow-waves, etc. We can talk about timing to brain activity, and that sort of "talking around what we're doing". If falling asleep is your biggest issue, than what we are currently offering is not for you. We're talking to other researchers (there is a bunch of neuro in our office), but the "fall asleep faster" stuff I've seen is mostly nonsense. BTW, I'm a life-long insomniac, that's how I got into this. We try to stay away from the "sleep less" terminology. Yes, your brain functions better as a result of stimulation. This has been shown in multiple studies, but the position we like to take is that I'm not the police of your sleep time. You decide the time you have and how sleep fits into your life, we ensure that time is as restorative as possible. This fits with young parents, shift-workers, etc. Some insomniacs will decide that this is how they want to deal with the lack of sleep, but I'm not putting insomnia as a primary target because we can't answer the primary complaint of not being able to fall asleep. As far as white-noise machine, it shouldn't affect the stimulation at all. People often ask us "what does it sound like" but the sound itself is only 1/10th of a second or less. The volume is important. Not loud enough, and your brain will ignore it, too loud, and it will wake you up, so we are constantly adjusting the volume based on the brain activity we are reading in real-time. The sound would/should be perceived as louder than your white-noise maker. It's possible if your white-noise maker is REALLY loud, the speaker just might not have enough power to overcome that, but I think that's unlikely. Internally we're talking about having noise, podcasts, etc being available to be played while you're trying to fall asleep, and once we've detected you are asleep, we turn that off, and move into stimulation mode, however, we have to be aware of battery consumption (bone-conduction uses a not insignificant amount of power), and that Apple doesn't expose BLE Audio to devices other than AirPods, which adds to the battery drain. We have some solutions to this, but it may be a post-launch update.

pedalpete 1y ago

Thanks for that feedback, and this is something we are currently struggling with. If you look on our website, we describe the process of increasing the synchronous firing of neurons which are the defining feature of deep sleep and the foundation of health. Unfortunately, we thought we'd have FDA regulatory approvals prior to launch, but we won't, which means we can't legally point to any specific biomarkers or physiological processes. It's a bit of a strange rule, because if the person was conscious while we provided the stimulation, we can say whatever we want, but because they are unconscious, we have to kinda dance around it. I'm still working on how we can clearly say what we do, while staying within the regulatory limitations. Is that the sort of thing you're looking for? Or maybe you are correct that it is my writing style that is the issue. I find for many people giving them a simple analogy they can latch on to makes it fairly simple. I don't think most people do understand that sleep hygiene isn't the activity that improves sleep. Most people think sleep is when they're brain and body are inactive, it's "rest", but in fact, it is anything but.

Nevermark 1y ago
I wouldn't keep downplaying sleep hygiene. It is real: 1. Lots of people are doing obvious things that clearly prevent them from getting good sleep: Alcohol, no exercise, or exercise to close to bedtime, bright screen time right before bed, drinking too much water and waking up, no regular bed time so body is always confused, not actively doing something with stress they take to bed with them, bedroom too warm, ... on and on. 2. Lots of people have benefited from not doing these unhelpful things. You might frame things as: ----- Poor sleep undermines almost everything we do, reducing motivation, lowering cognitive performance, and interfering with our social and professional lives. Poor sleep contributes significantly to both mental and physical health issues, and reduce lifespans. It is fair to say, that widespread sleep problems not only hold millions of individuals back, but society as a whole. Current wisdom is useful, as far as it goes. But it hasn't been enough. Sleep hygiene is great at removing barriers to good sleep, but our modern world bears little resemblance to the habitats and habits our bodies evolved to thrive in. All that complexity makes perfect hygiene impossible. And even with great hygiene, many people still have trouble getting quality sleep. But our team has had a profound insight, that we couldn't walk away from. There are other ways to help sleep than simply avoiding sleep disrupters or sleeping in late. Our team's unique vision is to pro-actively assist the body as it sleeps. To improve sleep quality, independent of sleep duration problems or other issues. This is a promising new, and complementary, approach to improving sleep. Our team has been engaged in fascinating work, developing a better understanding of the practicalities our brains deal with as they perform their vital sleep duties. But we are even more excited that those revelations are helping us design potential therapeutic interventions that can actively assist our brain to help us. And most of all, we are thrilled that those potential interventions in sleep quality, already in the works, may benefit individuals and society so profoundly. Are we being audacious or too earnest to say we have a dream? Well we do! We have a dream. ----- So, being complementary to sleep hygiene is a plus, not a minus. Two pronged attacks on problems are MUCH more powerful and promising, if they are complementary, than solutions that are just substitutions. Also, downplaying established wisdom is a flashing red sign pointing at cooks and scams. Einstein didn't downplay Newton's theory of gravity when he replaced it. Newton's theory was a great improvement over what existed before. Einstein wouldn't have had is own insights without it. All wisdom is a stepping stone to new wisdom, not an impediment. Knowing that sleep hygiene, despite being helpful, is widely recognized as not enough was surely and impetus for you own insights. It wasn't competition, it helped you, and it will still help people, as far as it goes. You may find the certain kinds of hygiene magnify the benefits of your work.