2023 Author: Jessica James | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 03:31
- How long should you set the alarm for?
- For September, please.
Such dialogues are not uncommon in my home, in the family of chronic owls, eagle owls and other owls. Go to bed at 22:00, as advised by sleep doctors? Great idea that almost never works. We will lie down, look at the cloth, count sheep and wasted time. And in the morning we'll get up with rumpled faces and bruised empathy. Until lunchtime, you will want only one thing - to kill. The most annoying thing is that both on vacation and on weekends I can sleep like a lion: 12 o'clock and 20. But I still get out of bed with the look as if I starred in the movie "Night of the Living Dead." And I would like, like a giraffe: 4 hours of nap - and I'm back in the ranks.
And all right, only these inconveniences. The first hour you wander around the house like a connecting rod bear. Crocodile is not caught, coconut foam does not grow on cappuccino. Problems are not solved, waiting for the brain to switch from the sleep phase at least to the autopilot mode. And most importantly, it has been proven by British and other scientists: chronic lack of sleep increases stress levels. As if in the midst of a pandemic it is already not enough.
To solve this problem, a million and one ways have been invented in the world. There are the ancients - for example, airing a room and taking a warm bath. By the way, they are used by Bill Gates and other celebrities. There are also fresh ones, like “smart pillows” and special trackers. We at BeаutyHack have tested some of them. Still, no magic cream is so refreshing as a good rest. So in the next month we will share our experience: sometimes grumble, sometimes praise. Well, I got a sleep app that (spoiler) had a lot of drawbacks.
How it works
Most of these applications are based on actigraphy, that is, motion tracking technology. Install the program on your phone and put it next to you when you are going to go to bed. With the help of a microphone, the sounds of all the owner's activities are recorded: they turned on their side, got into the toilet, began to snore, sneaked to the refrigerator (yeah, after all, it's not a cat that steals sausage at night).
The service analyzes the data and calculates the main phases of sleep in order to turn on the alarm during a quick one: waking up should be pleasant when the body is most ready to wake up
If the trills of the electronic nightingale sound during the stage of slow sleep, then this literally pulls us out of the embrace of Morpheus. Wait, wait, not so fast. At these moments, hormones are more actively produced, tissues are restored, the central nervous system is restarted. Opening your eyes at these moments means "hanging" our entire "operating system".
To prevent this from happening, the developers came up with a trick. You can set an alarm for a certain period, the so-called "wake-up window". For example, from 7:00 to 7:30. The application, having studied the schedule of your sleep, will choose the most appropriate time and turn on a melody with a gradually increasing volume. It will also advise the optimal time to finally close the laptop with the overlooked TV series and beat the pillow.
"Humpbacks" at the head
It was not difficult to download such a virtual "Ole Lukkoye": applications flooded both the App Store and Google Play. Paid, free, with a trial period for a month. Sleep Cycle, Sleep as Android, Good Morning, Sleep Better, Sleep Time - they almost all work the same way. After testing several, I did not notice any difference. Both interfaces and melodies are similar. So no favorites and outsiders, alas.
The main thing that each demanded was to put the smartphone next to you at night. On the bedside table at the head, or better - right next to the pillow. And then from somewhere from within I received two objections at once. Scientists who have been studying dreams for more than a dozen years and have "been" in the bed of hundreds of their charges are unambiguous in their conclusions: it is better to keep any electronic devices away from the bed. Even charging with a blinking light can unnerve the brain. And putting a gadget near your head is not a good idea. They explode sometimes, you know. Plus the virus - you need to wipe the surface even more thoroughly with an antiseptic before spending the whole night nearby.
Well, okay, what can't you do for the sake of an easy awakening. True, it did not happen in the morning. The phone was off. It turned out that the technology draws all the juices out of him. Just like a lack of sleep - from me. And this despite the fact that the smartphone was almost fully charged, and on ordinary days I have enough of it for a couple of days of active use. Well, I had to plug it into an outlet or a power bank at night. Bold minus.
Among the dozens of tunes with banal names like "Warm Breeze" and "Morning Mist", there were quite strange ones. Like "Humpbacks", "Still preserved" and "Metro-mind". On the version of "City Call" I decided that now sirens will howl, horns will sound and the wipers will shout a couple of gentle ones to someone invisible, who again did not carry the garbage to the trash can. But no, the usual motive, boredom. I chose Dawn by the Ocean with the sound of waves (in the best biohacking traditions) and went to bed.
Can you share your snoring
Either because of the thought that artificial intelligence was listening to me, or because of a pea under the mattress, but the first night I slept badly. Several times I checked if I accidentally pressed the phone, if the application was working. Oh, this anxiety. It seems that she was just beginning to fall asleep when the rustling of pebbles and the splash of water reminded her that it was time to get up. In my condition, you can only rebel. Rearranged the alarm clock. And either the application was more accurate this time, or the extra hour helped, but I felt more cheerful.
In the evening, having decided to study the program in more detail, I came across the section "Snoring". The Duration column read 15 minutes. Seriously?! Probably the husband. Or a cat - he sometimes likes to sigh like an old man. With a sinking heart I listened to the recording. It was easy - a garbage truck was snoring all over the area. When it's warm and the windows are wide open, everything gets into the "audio protocol": both a drunken neighbor bawling serenades and street racers practicing emergency braking. By the way, the nighttime "tygydyk" of pets and the walking of the other half for water also counts. Although the applications promised to record only those with whom they are in close proximity. Sleep analysis suffers greatly from this.
It turns out that the program can build an ideal schedule only if you live alone and in a soundproof bunker. Or, at least, you don't have noisy neighbors and open windows.
By the way, among the options was "measure and listen to your snoring, and also share it." I'll save, perhaps, suddenly one day it will become fashionable, like funny videos on TikTok.
I honestly tried to live on schedule for about a month. Sometimes the application guessed right with the alarm and I got up full of energy, sometimes it missed. It happened so that it rated my sleep as good, as much as 97%. And at the same time, I hardly blinked my eyes. And it happened the other way around: with 63% of so-so rest I was ready to move mountains right in my pajamas. It also happened that technology took my walking around the house for a phase of REM sleep.
But at least one point I found useful in this experiment. I began to control when and how I go to bed. No movies in the background, no social media in bed. And I also realized that getting up at 6 in the morning is not so scary. The main thing is to wake up at the right time.
