This section is something that I'm very excited to share with you. I've been working as a consultant with several medical device companies and startups over the past several years. And what's on the horizon in terms of technology, wearable technology, applications, it's very exciting. Just we're just on the cusp of a complete revolution, not only in sleep, but in medicine and health in general. So I'm excited to dive into some of the products and tools that I use with my patients coaching clients. And I think you'll find some value here.

The first is to measure you really need to measure how well you sleep if you're just guessing by how you feel or looking at your clock or time in bed. It just doesn't really cut it, you really need to have some concrete data and some metrics so that when you change something, whether it's a supplement or a technique or a tactic that you can measure and really see that it improved or didn't improve, and it's just a how to make intelligent decisions. So there's a variety of apps out there in the market. There are devices in there are a ton of wearables that are now available, some of them just within the last several months that really give you the power to monitor, evaluate and assess the true quality of your sleep. The one that I recommend most is sleep cycle, it's 99 cents on the App Store for Apple.

It's also available for Android. It's very simple, it's reliable. It's my favorite. I've been using it for over a year myself and with some of my coaching clients. And it's very simple, very intuitive. You basically plug your phone in, he put it down on the mattress, and it measures movement and detects, you know, different phases of your wakefulness and so it's very simple.

The key thing is it goes in airplane mode that will shut off the radio frequency admission. So obviously you don't want to have your phone on besides your brain all night because it's emitting radio, radio frequency energy. So I use a little device in the back of my phone if any of you seen the the blog or the podcast where I talked about a little device that can And emits the energy so that it directs away from the brain. I think you'll you'll love that little device. Zero personal sleep manager. This is an interesting device.

The company I believe is out of business, but these devices are still around. And it's basically as an EEG device so you can detect, what phase what level what depth of sleep a person is in. And, you know, if you're gonna, if you're interested in this device, they're still available out on Amazon and just definitely buy a used one, in terms of costs are a little bit pricey, but I'll share with you some other options in just a moment. This is what it looks like is a little head strap that goes on and it's just tracking brainwaves while you sleep. So eg is an electroencephalogram, and just as a medical term for monitoring and measuring the brainwaves and so to newer devices that I think are just fascinating, are the Muse in the cocoon, and the first one is the cocoon. This is basically a sound resistance A comfortable headset that you wear at night and you can play music or you don't have to play music.

But there's a number of sensors in there that monitor and measure brainwaves. The Muse This is actually a device used for meditation, I think the applications for sleep are definitely there too a little cumbersome if you're not a back sleeper, but anyways, the reference sensors there and it just will emit lights and I believe tones as well just to help a person determine what level of arousal they're in. So this is sort of a way to train yourself in terms of relaxation techniques. For those that suffer from, you know, maybe some thought rumination or anxiety, racing thoughts has trouble getting calmed down enough to actually get into bed and into into early phases of sleep. And gamification is a huge part of this, I think. You can see from the screen here, the variety of metrics and sessions and points and awards.

You can see they're just sort of gamified Sleep. This is actually a screenshot from the muse. But it's a way to encourage use and promote success and improvement. heart rate variability, this is not new. But it's key not only key for sleep, it's also if any of you are performance driven in terms of exercise. This is a huge way to predict training and overtraining.

And we'll get into that and for the purpose of this course, but anyways, there are number of apps out there that you can buy that track heart rate variability, one of the well known ones it's used in many medical clinics is heart math, and they have an inner balance sensor. It's not terribly expensive, just a couple hundred bucks. And the idea is to track heart rate variability and coherence. The higher the coherence, the more in the zone, if you will, in terms of heart rate variability, so when a person is stressed out, their heart rate is chaotic. I mean, a normal heart rate shouldn't be a steady 65 beats a minute, all day. All night, it varies.

It's just a normal, healthy pattern. And so if there's a nice smooth wave, it said that the heart rate is the variability is in coherence. And that's a good thing. When a person is stressed, it's like a sawtooth jagged pattern all over the place, which is bad. And it's very simple and easy to track this. I use an app on my phone.

I've been using it for several years, particularly when I was training for endurance events, I wanted to make sure it wasn't overtraining. And getting an idea of the resting heart rate in the morning is one way to predict that. But you can see just a quick search of the App Store. There's tons of heart rate variability apps out there, if they look around and see which one just sort of intuitively feels right for you and looks right. They're not terribly expensive. And I just threw up a screenshot of one of the heart rate variability apps for iPhone, their pain, pain is a huge disrupter of sleep.

People in chronic pain are anxious, they don't think clearly and they don't sleep well. And so there's several ways to get around chronic pain. I actually have one of these mats suffered some trauma from motorcycle accidents. But it's an acupressure mat. I don't recommend it for sleeping at night, although some people do. I think you're at risk for maybe some pressure sores if you use it long term, but I use it for napping and for meditation and so these little spikes on here, when you first lie on this thing, it feels uncomfortable.

There's no getting around that it's it's like searing pain in some spots. And that may sound unpleasant. But after a few minutes, it goes away and you're left with just the sort of bliss like state almost like you're floating and so it's it's one way to sort of trick your body to not perceive pain in such a intense degree and same concept. Like when you get kicked in the shin you rub it in, it tends to lessen the pain. It's the pain gait theory if you want to get into some more specifics. The next is CES.

This is a cranial electrical stimulation. And be sure to check out the potion section. I talk about some sleep aids that really have anti anti pain and anti inflammatory properties. So it's just a way to kind of hack chronic pain that doesn't rely on prescription drug therapy, narcotics and some of the other things that are addicting and can really have the potential to wreak havoc on lives. I see that in the emergency department way too often. The chilli pad This is a fascinating device.

I personally don't have one, I think it's the cost is probably a little bit prohibitive, but they do make smaller single units. And so if your partner likes a hot and you like it cold, you can really adjust this device and kind of regulate it to your degree of comfort. Remember when I talked about the sleep physiology part of it, the ideal temperature in the room is probably about 67 degrees Fahrenheit. So you know, it's depending on your physiology, and your stage of life hormones and whatnot, you can really fine tune and get into a comfortable zone much easier with this device. Light is a huge factor in melatonin production. I talked about that in several parts of this this course but it just goes to show the importance of it perfectly.

Of limiting light blue light, especially at night. And so we are all prone to use devices excessively, iPads, phones, phones in the bedroom TV, late night computer use all that interferes with sleep and sleep latency which causes a delay in falling asleep. And so if you're really you know, if you really must use these devices if you're you know, someone who's who's a workaholic and you're on your device late at night, just install this free program called flux and what it does is it filters out the light you can choose the color tones, you want pink or orange or whatnot and adjust the intensity of it but you know, it takes a little getting used to but it really limits the blue light exposure. What I use are just blue blocking sunglasses, they look kind of dorky in my kit, my kids laugh at me but if I'm going to read on my iPad in bed, I'm going to use those glasses or if I'm doing some consulting work with some clients in different part of the world and I have to be on my computer late at night.

I definitely have flux going and sometimes even the blue block classes because when I'm done, I want to get into bed and I want to sleep quickly. Or consider a screen filter screen filters are a little ugly. But if you know I definitely check out flux, just google flux and it's free. This is a screenshot. You can see the sort of the pinkish hue to the Vimeo presentation I was watching here and then the bottom is just the slide deck for this course you can see how much brighter and and clear without the overtone. Alright, so moving on to cranial electrical stimulation.

This is really amazing technology. It sounds sort of Hocus Pocus, where you're emitting low levels of shock if you will, brain and scalp not the brain but the scalp and the head. And so it's used for pain, anxiety, depression, and insomnia. And what the researchers found is that people who use this device have increased levels of serotonin, norepinephrine and beta endorphin which is a substance that decreases pain. So it's obviously beneficial for depression. But there are also some studies that show that it that it works quite well for sleep by improving sleep latency, and helping people feel more rested.

So in a nutshell, it helps people fall asleep faster, and wake up feeling more rested. It's FDA approved. It's not a new device. It's been used in the dental industry for anxious pain, anxious patients with you know, oral pain and procedural use. So it's a really interesting device. This is one of the more commercial devices here it's called the Fisher Wallace stimulator.

They use of their device primarily targets anxiety and depression, but it certainly has some other benefits as well. You can check out their website. I think the device currently is about five to $600 if I recall, right, I haven't looked at the price for a little while. And that wraps up the product section. So things change and be sure to do a little research on your own. It's just fascinating what's coming online in terms of Products technology.

Not all of them are electronic. There are some amazing sleep apnea products out there that can really improve the quality of sleep and enhance your life, longevity and performance.