I’m a life-long insomniac. Without fail, I wake every two or three hours – and it takes another hour to drop off again. But this ‘brain retraining’ tool is giving me the best sleep ever

As a lifelong insomniac who knows 3 a.m. all too well, I’ve tried everything from an overpriced valerian bubble bath to CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy to break negative thought patterns and behaviors that disrupt sleep) to prescription sleeping pills. All of these helped to varying degrees, but not enough.

I generally have no trouble falling asleep, but I wake up every two or three hours without fail and often need another hour to return to head-nodding land.

The ‘sleep tech’ industry, which includes everything from tracking devices to app-controlled beds that promise a better night, is booming and was worth an estimated £22bn last year.

So, can the new generation of neuroscience-supported sleep devices that claim to work directly on brain waves give a glimmer of hope to people like me who think they’ve tried everything? Could such a device actually retrain my brain to stay asleep?

My experience started with the £300 Zeez sleeping pebble.

All you have to do is open a plastic-covered, rechargeable, pebble-shaped device about six inches long and slide it under your pillow. It emits imperceptible electromagnetic pulses that mimic brain wave frequencies during different stages of sleep.

It starts with pulses of the same frequency as alpha waves that the brain produces when we fall asleep, progresses to theta waves (which occur during light sleep), and finally progresses to slow delta waves in deep sleep. Zeez cycles through these frequencies four times, lasting about seven hours, mimicking the natural cycles of someone who sleeps well.

According to the manufacturer of Zeez, the brain begins to ‘resonate’ with these frequencies, encouraging it to go into sleep mode. This is similar to what happens with tuning forks. If two prongs in the same area are tuned to the same frequency, hitting one has no choice but to follow suit or “resonate” with the other.

I usually have no trouble falling asleep, but I wake up every two or three hours and often need another hour to return to nodding land, writes Helen Down

Therefore, no electronic devices are allowed in the bedroom when using Zeez, as these also emit electromagnetic signals that can ‘interfere’ with the process. So no Wi-Fi unless the router is more than seven meters away. Likewise, no phone unless it’s in airplane mode. As someone who is quite neurotic about sleep hygiene, this was already part of my routine.

As for whether such electromagnetic pulses can actually penetrate my dense memory foam pillow, the answer is yes, according to Gerry Leo, head of physics at Capital City College in north London. ‘If the device emits very low frequency fields in the brainwave range, these fields can pass through plastic casing and ordinary pillow materials.’ [with an insignificant reduction in intensity]’ he says.

Zeez’s maker says it can take up to six weeks to be effective.

By the fourth week I was still waking up multiple times. I felt more alert in the morning, but I assumed it was a placebo.

But one night, five weeks later, I forgot to put the pebble under my pillow. And oh boy, did I have a disturbing night. I woke up feeling hungover, even though no alcohol had passed my lips.

Even though Zeez didn’t give me the full seven hours, was it possible that the sleep I interrupted could have been deeper and more restful? Professor John Groeger, a sleep researcher at Nottingham Trent University, isn’t entirely convinced. ‘The electrical activity of the brain changes constantly throughout the night; “Alpha, theta and delta waves are all present at the same time, but in different amounts and in different parts of the brain,” he says.

‘How can the device know what type of wave it should emit without tracking each individual’s activity? So how can it adapt to all the natural changes that affect sleep, such as the user’s age or gender?’

So there is room for improvement.

Hungry for more, I picked up the Somnee headband, developed by a company co-founded by Matt Walker, professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and author of the bestselling Why We Sleep.

The Somnee looks like a Serena Williams-style sweatband but is made of a neoprene-like fabric.

It uses a three-pronged electrode to deliver transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) and is placed just above the eyebrows, targeting the sleep centers of the brain. The theory is that, similar to Zeez, tACS will synchronize brain waves with rhythms optimal for deep sleep. However, unlike Zeez, Somnee directly stimulates the brain.

The Zeez pebble cycles through our brain frequencies four times for approximately seven hours, mimicking the natural cycles of a good sleeper.

The monitoring technology is similar to that used in sleep labs, but on a smaller scale (the Somnee headband uses a three-pronged electrode, while a lab can use about 50 electrodes).

Costing $489 (£365) for the headband and a six-month supply of electrodes, it has integrated EEG sensors (electrodes that detect and record the brain’s electrical signals). These, together with AI, map each individual’s ‘brainprint’ for personalized TACS stimulation.

My hopes were high. After attaching the electrode to the headband and connecting to the app, I wore the Somnee around my head. I read a book to distract myself from the painless but annoying feeling of gas on my forehead.

Each ‘stim’ session, which must be done when it is time to fall asleep, lasts 15 minutes. Halfway through my first session, I felt delightfully sleepy and tried sleeping with the tape (the advantage of this was that the tape tracked my sleep, too).

Unfortunately, as a side sleeper, it felt very bulky. And as I waited for the session to be completed before removing the headband, I effectively woke myself up and ruined all the good working of the headband.

In any case, that first night I woke up only once and fell asleep quickly again; It was a good night for me.

But my optimism was short-lived. I spent years training myself to turn off the phone at night. So having to use the Somnee app before bed and staying awake until I removed the band and turned off my phone was problematic for me and caused more anxiety. Soon it started taking me three hours to fall asleep fitfully.

The company claims that 80 percent of users report that the greatest benefits come after the 21st session. However, I was too tired to continue the previous 12th session.

A small clinical trial (funded by the manufacturer) suggests that Somnee is four times more effective than melatonin (a supplement that replicates our natural sleep hormone), twice as effective as CBT, and 1.5 times more effective than prescription sleeping pills at helping people fall asleep and stay asleep.

I asked Professor Groeger why this didn’t work for me.

He said Somnee has a big advantage over Zeez sleep gravel because it acts more directly on the brain. But he also noted that the research Somnee relied on showed that tACS was more effective in young people.

‘The younger the users, the more likely tACS is to be effective,’ he says. That’s not what I wanted to hear at 53 years old.

While Professor Groeger is confident that such stimulation can induce sleep by slowing down brain waves and helping to turn off the ‘chatter’ that prevents many of us from drifting off, he adds that it may not do you much good. to stay fall asleep.

‘My hunch,’ he explains, ‘is that if teenagers are helped to sleep in this way, they will be more likely to stay asleep. And their “sleep system” [the biological mechanisms which regulate the body’s sleep and wakefulness] It is strong enough to keep them asleep.

‘But older people have much less slow-wave sleep and a weaker sleep system overall. So this might not work for them because what the Somnee is trying to strengthen is already weak.’

In my case, it’s not just my age that’s working against me, but also my history of sleep anxiety and playing with my phone before bed. Waiting for the stimulation sessions to end helped me become more attuned to my insomnia, not less.

As Professor Groeger puts it, ‘the things that make us worry about sleep will never help.’ [with insomnia]’.

I immediately went back to using the Zeez pebble. It felt refreshingly simple to push a button and slip it under my pillow.

Even though I’m still awake at inconvenient hours because of my to-do list, I’m convinced enough that Zeez helps me wake up feeling less groggy that I still use it every night.

Like many insomniacs, my problem stems from a complex intermingling of physiological and psychological factors. As Professor Groeger points out, there is no one thing that works for everyone.

No matter how much I want to believe, I’m afraid it will remain a distant dream for cases like mine that bless seven hours straight.