Marketing image from Nighwave.com
Once in a while I have difficulty shutting down for the evening. My brain grabs onto a subject and refuses to quit thinking about them. I’ve tried everything from meditation to Tylenol PM with some success, but after a busy day, and too much caffeine, I still lay awake for far too long. I’m not interested in sleeping pills, so when Nightwave contacted me about testing out one of their “all natural” devices I took them up on the offer.
The product isn’t exactly natural, but the method it invokes apparently is. The device is a blue LED that paces your breathing, forcing you to relax and eventually fall asleep. It has 4 settings, Sleep Aid (7 minutes), Mood Light, Mood Softener, and Flashlight.
The Sleep Aid modes are 7 minutes with a reasonable breathing rate and 25 minutes with a slower breathing rate. I fell asleep well with both settings, but had difficulty breathing as slow as the latter. The directions suggest watching the light as it pulses and match your breathing to it, then as you tire, close your eyes and fall asleep. I found it worked better if I put it close beside me where I could see the light through my closed eyelids. Keeping my eyes open just opened my mind up to more distractions.
I’m not an expert, but I think this device would work well for anyone who has had some success with meditation. My success using the Nightwave was greatly reduced on days that I had too much caffeine, or extremely busy days at work.
The Nightwave is $60 at Amazon, but before spending the money, I’d investigate some of the iPhone and Android Sleep apps that purport to do the same thing for much less money.
