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Last month, I tried something new in the bedroom.
I began using an Eight Sleep, a high-tech, water-filled mattress topper that uses sensors to change its temperature overnight based on a sleeper’s preferences. Soon after receiving a unit from the brand for testing, I made an account on the gadget’s app, and programmed the topper to feel cold for my bedtime at 10:30 p.m., and then radiate heat when I wake up at 6:30 a.m. My fiancée programmed her side of the bed to stay roughly the same temperature throughout the night. I snooze better with the Eight Sleep than without it; and that’s a good thing because the $4,000 price tag alone (or $6,000 if you also buy the company’s proprietary mattress), is enough to keep users up at night.
Eight Sleep is one of many sleep-enhancing products gaining steam in a society obsessed with shut-eye. Millions of people now wear smartwatches, wristbands, headbands and even rings with tiny sensors that collect droves of biometric sleep feedback. These wearables monitor movement, body temperature and heart-rate variability through the night and churn out an assessment of how well – or poorly – you slept; in a time when heightened stress is leading North Americans to sleep less than before. We are quantifying sleep just as we are becoming lousy at it, and this dissonance has sent the sleep-aid industry skyrocketing.
Spending hundreds, or even thousands of dollars a year on one’s sleep hygiene no longer sounds like a stretch. And while I am all in for investing in my well-being, I wonder how much impact, if any, these high-tech devices actually have on sleep, and whether or not they are worth their cost.
“Sleep tech is expanding faster than wildfire,” said Stuart Fogel, a cognitive neuroscientist and director of sleep neuroscience at the Royal’s Institute for Mental Health Research. “It makes it impossible to know how all of these things were developed, what’s good, what’s not, what will stand the test of time.”
Digital sleeping aids have undoubtedly improved in recent years; some wearables circa 2019 still struggled to distinguish between their wearer being asleep and immobile. Now, the market has exploded. For US$300, you can purchase a Somnee Smart Sleep Band, which uses EEG sensors and algorithms to construct a specialized, 15-minute transcranial electrical stimulation to the brain and learn more about the depth of one’s sleep. Priced similarly is the Muse meditation headband from the Toronto-based company InteraXon, which tracks brain activity, heart rate, breath and body movement overnight, and provides personalized music clips meant to boost relaxation.
Fogel is cautiously optimistic about these sleep devices. He says the theories behind many of them are sound: Transcranial electrical stimulation, for example, is a key part of academic sleep research. He also likes the premise behind devices that manipulate a sleeper’s environment which reinforce natural temperature fluctuations. He explains that, to initiate sleep, our core body temperature has to drop, and reach a low in the middle of night to encourage long periods of rapid eye movement (or REM) sleep, which improves cognitive function and emotional well-being. Whether that is done naturally or artificially, such as with Eight Sleep, could produce the same result: better sleep.
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Sleep tech that uses artificial intelligence, he continues, is poised to improve drastically in the next few years as they collect more user data. Many of them already train themselves on a wearer’s sleep patterns to offer more tailored stimulus. The Oura Ring 4, a US$349 ring indistinguishable from a wedding band, uses a cluster of small sensors and AI technology to capture data and make recommendations about when to go to sleep, when to exercise and whether someone is a morning person or not. The ring’s creators are hoping to upgrade it with the ability to tell when and what users should eat.
But the proliferation of sleep tech and tracking also has a dark side. Dr. Fogel warns of the perils of orthosomnia: the obsession over sleep scores and modalities that ironically leads sufferers to sleep less. He also questions the accuracy of commercial sleep trackers and doubts they can reliably tell us how many hours we slept or how long we spent in different sleep stages, such as falling asleep, light sleep, slow-wave sleep and REM.
In his view, the only accurate way to distinguish between these stages is with lab-grade polysomnography, which involves electrodes on the scalp, face and chin, a finger sensor for blood oxygen, breathing equipment and manual scoring by an expert.
“Reverse-engineering what we have in the lab is too complicated to fit in a tiny device right now,” he said. “If we are just relying on our watch to tell us how we slept, and make decisions based on that alone, it’s difficult to know if a new sleep device actually is helping us.”
Yet, others are optimistic that we are moving toward having science-backed, lab-grade sleep equipment on our wrists, fingers and temples. Dr. Judith Davidson, clinical psychologist and author of Sink into Sleep: A Step-by-Step Guide for Reversing Insomnia, agrees that sleep devices are rapidly improving. She believes that, in the future, researchers, clinicians and the wearables industry may agree on a standard for sleep measurement using personal devices.
This could open up new research opportunities and set a higher standard for consumer sleep technology, making it easier for people to become expert sleepers at home while also easing pressure on the health care system. Fogel agrees that there is likely a place for these devices in the medical world, as long as they go through testing and become approved by Health Canada.
“At best, we no longer will have one- or two-year wait times to see sleep experts because we have clinical-grade equipment at home,” he said. “But that’s still a ways off. We’re still just scratching the surface.”