I'm looking at HRV Biofeedback Devices such as emwave2, there seems to be some good studies and a lot of flakey vague terminology and marketing.
Does anyone have any experience or thoughts on these devices, or recommendations other than emwave2 /innerbalance.
My primary goal is to improve sleep,at the moment I take melatonin and gaba, there's a state enforced melatonin monopoly in the area I live which makes the price extortionate and I've also read that melatonin increases serotonin, so I want to ditch it.

Reptired wrote:
May I recommend music therapy

sanctumzone.co.uk/forum/Health--Nutritio...-and-depression.html

mikey mikey wrote:
Yes, but you may also need to recommend elephant tranquillisers.

Love Claire De Lune

I'm a terrible bloody sleeper, all the worse for the missus who sleeps like a bloody light switch...and god help me if I wake her up, she levitates, speaks in tongues and pukes shit at me ffs lol...

The only thing that works for me is a cool room, window open and booze beforehand basically.
Oddly enough I seem to sleep best if my feet are warm but the rest of me cool. The warm weather lately has been a bitch.

andyh wrote:



I would also be classed as a terrible sleeper and getting worse as I get older. Although I don't mind the not sleeping at night, it's the feeling shit the next day part that's the problem. In fact, sleeping during the day isn't an issue... so what's that about?

*spoils undead creature of the night comment to appear from whoever would have got there first*

It explains how you managed to stay up all night in vid chats lol :p

Gah, I miss the vid chat stuff, wish we could get that back again.

andyh wrote:
Yeah, it's a curse, melatonin works for a lot of people as does GABA or any GABA agonist like taurine or glycine which are common amino acids. I've found gelatin to be quite good with a little honey and salt, gelatin has glycine, honey (sugar) and salt lower stress hormones.
I need to be cool too although some of the best sleep I ever got was in the tropics, I think it was to do with the fact that there was no artificial light and the "white noise" from the night time insects.

andyh wrote:

We're working on it as it happens... albeit at the usual rate anything get's done around here... but working on it nonetheless

psketti wrote:
www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/33866...oft-begins-roll-out/

Maybe we can all just make hotmail accounts and drag each other into vid chat for free with that?

Soz for the thread diversion reptired

Damn it, I can't sleep either. And when I'm not having a bout of insomnia, you can guarantee that no matter what hour of the night or day I actually manage to drift off, one of the inconsiderate twerps in my house will wake me up immediately (person or dog). It drives me mad. MAD I tell you.

Hence, I get up at 2am, 3am, 4 or 5am rather than lie there listening to the grunts & sleep-talking. Husband will be smack bang in the middle of the bed, masses of space on his far side, with the dogs full length in between us, and me hanging for dear life off the piping round the edge of the mattress. And he flails in his sleep - arms like tree-trunks slamming down at face level unexpectedly. Son comes in & attempts to pee on you, cause he's sleep-walking & doesn't know where he is. Daughter thinks it's a good idea to take a shower at mid-night after shouting prolonged farewells to her mates on the door-step. Dogs whimper & growl in their sleep. It's fooking Bedlam!

Oops, sorry. Am I venting?



Well no bloody wonder, it's because fatigue makes you grumpy!!!

Gilly wrote:

Hence I don't even bother trying to sleep until the above times

But it meets with disapproval when I try to kip at my desk at work, Sketts. I don't think they like it.

No word of a lie, a couple of years ago while at work, I actually woke myself up by speaking to someone on the phone. I must have fallen into a deep sleep, suddenly, and picked the phone up on auto-pilot, and my voice, introducing myself & the company made me jump and it took a moment to fathom where I was & what was going on. It was extremely weird.

Fuck knows what credits I've raised on customers' business accounts while on auto-pilot. I hope they're grateful for my sleeping habits.

Gilly wrote:
That's the stuff of nightmares!

The reduction in melatonin production that jiggers up your sleep routines is reputed to be one of the effects of the ELF pollution that Knobs was talking about.

Gilly wrote:
Possibly, although its ELF and SLF frequency thats worth worrying about.

I have been using one of these devices (inner balance heartmath) for the last few days.
I feel sharper and calmer, I have been sleeping better, but I have also been taking gelatin before bed and I have only been using it for a short time.
It's basically a sensor that picks up pulse etc and you have an onscreen breath pacer, you then get scores based on how smooth the pattern of heart rate variability and the difference in variability over time.
Still early days but I think you could get the benefits from using a breathing pacer, there's a free ios pacer, or you could use a watch etc, for no cost, I seem to get the best average coherence for sessions from 7-12 mins.
There's an interesting study showing a significant increase in DHEA in participants "in coherence" for 20 mins per day.