Elemind Wearable Suppresses Alpha Waves To Induce Sleep – IEEE Spectrum

Curious to hear what folks think of this. The company ran an RCT with practically and statistically significant on the primary outcome (falling asleep sooner), but I think participants would have been able to tell whether they were in the treatment or control period since the headset uses noise to work, so it seems it could plausibly be a placebo effect.

The mechanism seems plausible, they are measuring the pattern of your brain’s alpha waves (which are associated with wakefulness) with EEG sensors, and then precisely timing pulses of audio to disrupt those waves. Auditory stimulus produces a pretty consistent electrical response pattern in the brain, and that pattern can interfere with the pattern of the alpha waves if timed right, helping induce sleep faster.

But even if the mechanism works, hard to say how effective it will be. I am not totally convinced, but seems extremely high impact if it works well.