You might think that this handsome somnolent couple are a couple of offenders tagged by law enforcement authorities, but in fact they are examples of the new wave of cash-rich, time-poor yuppies who worry that lack of sleep impairs their performance at work. Their headbands are, in fact, Zeo sleep-pattern monitors, developed by a Massachussetts-based start-up. Here’s how it works:

1. You wear the gizmo in bed. It monitors your brain-waves (if you have any). The resulting data are beamed to a bedside receiver.

2. Upon waking, instead of making a nice cup of tea, you “review your sleep data”. The bedside device gives you a “personal sleep score – your ZQ” – and displays a graph of your Light, Deep and REM sleep over the course of the night. The bedside display will also tell you how last night’s sleep compares to previous nights.

3. Now comes the interesting bit. You upload the data from your bedside device to your PC (the illustration shows a Mac, so maybe it’s an eucumenical technology). This process enables you to compile your “Zeo Sleep Journal”, helps you to identify the “7 Sleep Stealers” (interestingly, a trademarked phrase) and to “spot any connections between your daily lifestyle choices and your nightly sleep and find out for yourself some of the cause and effect patterns in your sleep”.

4. This is where you start “a guided self-discovery process for your sleep. This personalized sleep coaching program asks you to set goals for your sleep and then provides you with customized strategies to help you to achieve these goals”. Apparently you can get “a series of personalized e-mails that incorporate effective sleep tips and advice, customized to your sleep data, lifestyle and goals” together with a “customized action plan to deal with each of the 7 Sleep Stealers as they relate to you and your sleep” and “goal-oriented assignments that are realistic and achievable, and will not require you to drastically rearrange your lifestyle or even your sleep style”.

That’s the stuff. Can’t imagine how we got by without this. A snip at $399.00.

Two thoughts:

1. Heidegger’s observation that technology is “the art of arranging the world so that we don’t have to experience it”.
2. For those of a technophobic disposition, a nightcap of the sort distilled by Messrs Jameson is a most effective aid to sound sleep, and does not require the wearing of any headbands.