Sleep for the Rest of you.
I researched for sleep and ways to improve sleep for a better conscious state. This lead me to research sleep stages, circadian rhythm, and light therapy. SAD (winter blues), Jetlag, delayed sleep phase syndrome, and insomnia are some of the most common physiological disorders that affect our well-being.
So what is sleep? We detach ourselves from our sensors to rest physically and mentally. The why is obvious, we all know what happens when we don’t sleep. It is a vital biological function.
Sleep logging: Here is a link to yawnlog, a beta project that logs your sleep by having the user tweet sleep habits.
Sleep Architecture:
During sleep our brain doesn’t necessarily stop working, in contrast to our body the brain keeps functioning. In adults, sleep is divided into two states REM and NREM sleep (rapid eye movement and none).
NREM sleep consists in four different stages with different EEG activity. Here is a link to the different sleep stages. The architecture of sleep is very delicate, if a person wakes up in stage 4, usually they wake up tired. This is the last stage of NREM sleep, the next stage is REM sleep. This state is where we dream the most.
“Small structures in the brain called suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) coordinate circadian rhythms. The SCN, in turn, is very sensitive to the presence or absence of light. This may explain why daytime sleep has been found to be less restful than nighttime sleep.”
Circadian Rhythm
Blue Light:
“Blue light exposure may be a countermeasure for fatigue, particularly during the night.” This article from the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School reinforces me take on how blue light (blue; 460 nm) may help reduce fatigue.
“The subjects exposed to blue light consistently rated themselves less sleepy, had quicker reaction times, and had fewer lapses of attention during the performance tests compared to those who were exposed to green light. They also had changes in their brain activity patterns that indicated a more alert state.”
Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has done research which indicates that if we don’t get a strong exposure to bright, blue light in the morning, it can delay our circadian rhythm, making it hard to fall asleep that night. Here we have a list of their research:
- Light can alleviate seasonal depression.
- Light can increase the length and quality of sleep.
- Light can consolidate sleep/activity patterns in Alzheimer’s Disease patients.
- Light can improve the performance of night-shift workers.
- Light can improve weight gain in premature infants.
- Light activation of the circadian system is affected by a newly discovered photoreceptive mechanism in the eye.
- Light regulates melatonin, which has been shown to reduce breast cancer growth.
- Light has a direct impact on cortical brain activity.
“Until recently, it was thought that the eye was just used to see. BWH researchers and others have shown that it is also used to detect light for other purposes, such as resetting the body clock to the 24-hour day.”
This other article focuses more on blue light as the mean to treat circadian rhythm disorders. Also, bright light therapy is a common treatment for seasonal affective disorder. White light is applied for a small period of time in the morning to help depression.
Products
Phillips has these products in the market. These products claim to improve your day by having your circadian cycle restored, improving your mood by waking up naturally. All of these claims seem promising to people’s happiness. This is another product that aims to treat sleep disorders the same way.
On waking up naturally i found this for a dawn simulator: “A dawn simulator gradually turns on your bedside lamp in the morning, before you wake up, so that your retina (not you — you’re still asleep!) “sees” the light show up at the time you choose, increasing gradually just as natural sunlight does, over about 30-45 minutes.”
I did research to improve the Bed_data project. Here is an article on sleep movement tracking (the study of sleep and circadian rhythms, provides an acceptably accurate estimate of sleep patterns).
Materials and sensors
I found this instructable on a 2×2 soft fsr matrix. I wonder how scalable this can be, so I emailed Pluesa in hopes to learn more about soft sensors.
Here is a company that has conductive foam and other products for your diy sensor needs. Here is the company Mustafa and I bought the conductive foam for our sensors:
Also here’s Kate Hartman’s soft sensing report.
In conclusion, light therapy can help restore the circadian rhythm if applied correctly. Blue light stops the production of melatonin, which is a hormone that induces sleep. A dawn simulator alarm can help different circadian rhythm disorders according to the amount of light you can get in the morning. Our cognitive functions are weakened by a lack of sleep, thus we can improve our sleep habits by logging them and resetting sleep cycles.
