What are the sleep health products?

The sleep health products currently on the market are mainly designed around the two core scenarios of sleep monitoring and sleep intervention. They range from sleep-aid nasal patches and steam eye masks worth a dozen yuan to home sleep cabins worth hundreds of thousands, covering all levels of needs from daily relaxation to clinical treatment.

The products that everyone comes into contact with most often are lightweight daily intervention products, such as steam eye masks that office workers always keep in their drawers, aromatherapy machines that are placed at the bedside of renters, and warm-scented sleep-aid candles that have become popular in the past two years. Many of my friends in the new media work overtime until the early morning. When they go home, they light up citrus-flavored aromatherapy and apply warmth. Warm steam eye masks can indeed quickly relax the nerves that have been tense for a day. However, there are many controversies about this type of product. People with sensitive skin say that wearing steam eye masks often can easily cause fat particles around the eyes to suffocate. Users with allergic rhinitis also reported that the artificial flavors in many aromatherapy products can irritate the respiratory tract, and the more they use it, the more they can't sleep.

If they want to figure out where their sleep problems lie, many people’s first reaction is to buy a bracelet or watch with a sleep monitoring function. For a few hundred yuan, a model can record the number of turning over at night, the proportion of deep sleep and light sleep, and even identify the risk of snoring and sleep apnea. I had dinner with a friend who works in backend development a while ago. He said that he had been wearing a bracelet for more than half a year and found out that as long as he drank more than half a cup of milk tea before going to bed, his deep sleep would be shortened by one and a half hours that night. He deliberately replaced all the milk tea he drank overtime with sugar-free oolong tea. However, a reminder here is that data from consumer-level monitoring equipment can only be used for daily reference and cannot replace hospital polysomnography. Netizens have previously shared that they were warned by a bracelet that they were at risk of "severe sleep apnea." After being anxious for half a month, they went to the hospital for all-night monitoring, only to discover that the bracelet had been misjudged by sliding it to the forearm at night.

If sleep problems have affected daily life, many people will be willing to spend money to upgrade bedding, such as slow rebound memory pillows worth thousands of dollars, independent pocket spring mattresses, and smart adjustable mattresses that have become popular in recent years. I have experienced one at a smart home show before. When lying down, it can automatically recognize the body curve and adjust the support. Patients with lumbar protrusion can just lie on the waist to be supported, and the shoulder and neck areas can be adjusted individually. It is indeed friendly to people with bad spines, but the price is not low, and a slightly better model costs tens of thousands. There are also many people who try intervention products such as white noise machines and CES microcurrent sleep aids. The effects of these products vary even more. Some users say that after using the CES sleep aid, they used to lie down for 40 minutes to fall asleep, but now they feel drowsy in 15 minutes. Some users said that after using it for half a month, it was of no use at all, but it hurt a little when worn. At present, the academic community has not yet reached a unified conclusion on the long-term effectiveness of this type of microcurrent intervention. It is best to try a trial version before buying, and do not blindly follow the trend and buy expensive ones.

There is also a category of medical-grade sleep health products specifically for clinical use. The most common ones are ventilators for patients diagnosed with sleep apnea syndrome, also known as CPAP machines. Such products are medical devices and cannot be purchased online for personal use. You must adjust the parameters according to the doctor's instructions. I saw a patient before who thought it was troublesome to go to the hospital and bought a ventilator online. The parameters were adjusted incorrectly. After using it for a week, he slept worse and suffered from dry mouth and headache in the morning.

In general, there are indeed many choices for sleep products now, and you don’t have to always focus on “black technology” or “internet celebrity models”. First, figure out whether you just need to relax before going to bed, or if you have specific sleep problems to solve, and choose according to your needs so that you are not likely to fall into traps.