Sleep quality is one of the big predictors of health. Not getting enough sleep, or sleeping badly, can impact your cardiovascular health, your concentration and mood, your ability to recover from illness or injury, and pretty much everything else, with a knock-on effect on your longevity. No wonder companies like Elemind are trying to find new ways to help you sleep (https://longevity.technology/news/elemind-unveils-sleep-enhancing-electric-medicine-headband/).
Elemind is a relatively new neurotechnology company from Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was founded in 2019 and has only just revealed its first product, a headband that uses electrical impulses to aid sleep. This fits with the company’s overall mission statement, which is to find drug-free health solutions based on what it calls “electric medicine”. That’s its term for brainwave stimulation.
Brainwave stimulation may sound a little intimidating, but Elemind is committed to a non-invasive approach. All you need to do is wear the band, which was developed with the help of neuroscientists from MIT, around your head. It will read your brainwaves, then release specially tailored electrical impulses to try to nudge them from wakeful to sleeping. It’s called “acoustic stimulation”, and trials so far suggest it can cause a 74% improvement in the rate at which you fall asleep.
The band can be paired with an app on your smartphone for increased personalization, but it’s not necessary for it to work. If you do download the app, it could provide deeper insights into your sleep patterns, such as how long you spend in each stage of sleep. There’s an AI algorithm that can adapt to your sleep habits and feedback and tailor the band’s performance to your specific needs based on this data.
There’s more to come from this clever little device. Elemind is already planning its first upgrade to try to stimulate deep sleep in particular. For now, it’s picked up $12 million in seed funding to help launch the new band. It’s not long until it starts shipping, with a beta program enticing users with early app access and a year-long subscription.
Meredith Perry, Elemind’s CEO, describes the flagship product as “noise-cancellation for the brain”. It’s something that can help you shut out the rest of the world and concentrate just on sleeping well, without stress or distractions. That’s certainly an intriguing alternative for people who are concerned about the potential side effects of traditional sleeping pills.
