SleepPhones: A Sleep Aid for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Getting a good night's sleep can be difficult for anyone. But for those with visual impairments there can be a whole new set of challenges.
Thankfully, there are some excellent natural methods for alleviating difficulties falling asleep. One such remedy is a unique pair of headphones that can be a solution for a variety of issues that tend to cut shuteye short.
No Side Sleep for the Earbud Lovers
"I came across SleepPhones and I thought I'd give them a shot," remembers Liam Erven, founder of L-Works, a company that creates computer games for the visually impaired. "I really liked them for the reason I could fall asleep on my side. If you try to sleep with earbuds or any other kind of headphones, they dig into your head."
There are multiple solutions to this problem, yet none of them quite make the cut like SleepPhones do. For instance, if you're a side sleeper too, you probably know the pitfalls of a pillow speaker. "My favorite thing [about SleepPhones] is being able to be comfortable and have sound that doesn’t disturb anybody else. The only one that hears it is me," says Liam.
For couples, pillow speakers can be disruptive to the partner who is not using it due to the lack of isolated sound. In addition, this rudimentary sleep aid technology is often uncomfortable, breaks easily, and often lacks proper volume control. "I remember when SleepPhones came out," says Liam. "[AcousticSheep] said 'We're better than pillow speakers!'"
I suppose we made an impact, as Liam has been using SleepPhones for nearly ten years.
A Need for Noise
Due to a rare genetic condition called Norrie disease, Liam has been blind since birth. In his younger years he was fine without noise when going to bed, but after one particular stint in the hospital, he can't sleep in a silent room.
"I was in the hospital for a week in 2007 and I had a really hard time falling asleep in silence. "It's very eerie," Liam says of the lack of natural noise. "Hospital ambience is just hard, I don't want to say traumatic, but it was kind of rough... I mean, you can't pop open a window. So I had no sound, no outside noise."
Whether or not a life event triggered your need for sound while you sleep, it's incredible common to need white noise. In fact, the desire for "something" on in the background is so strong that nearly two-thirds of Americans fall asleep with the TV on, according to a survey by Sleep Review Magazine. Although it not recommended that you fall asleep with electronics glowing and droning on in the background, this statistic illuminates an interesting point. Many people need noise to get a good night's sleep.
SleepPhones can deliver the sound you desire without the distracting flicker of the television.
Well-Rested Couples Are Stronger
It's been proven that relationship satisfaction can improve when couples fall asleep at the same time. While the article "The Top 8 Benefits of Sleeping Next to Someone" provides a long list of benefits about falling asleep together including, but not limited to increased happiness, reduced stress, improved cardiac function, and higher rates of relationship satisfaction, it's harder than it may sound.
So how can couples work around this predicament? "My girlfriend and I are complete opposites when it comes to sleeping," tells Liam. "She can't have noise, I have to have noise. She's said, 'I'm so happy you got the SleepPhones because I cannot sleep with the TV on.'"
SleepPhones allow both partners to sleep in their preferred manner while still falling asleep together. This in turn ensures that couples start happy and healthy.
Non-24
While Liam does not suffer from Non-24, sometimes referred to as Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder, Free-running Disorder, Non-entrained Disorder, or Hypernychthemeral Disorder, it does affect an estimated 50-70% of people who are totally blind.
This disorder is a "serious, chronic circadian rhythm disorder that is very common in people who are totally blind, meaning no light perception," as defined by Non-24.com. However, medication may not be the only solution.
Blindness.org found that lifestyle habits, such as diet, exercise, and stress management significantly impact the quality and duration of sleep for those who are visually-impaired. This is to say, although it can be difficult, those with blindness and visual impairments should strive to eat healthy, workout regularly, and use mindfulness strategies to de-stress before bed.
AcousticSheep has made dozens of guided relaxation CDs, MP3s, and YouTube playlists that include nature sounds, hypnosis, and white noise. These ambient sounds and spoken words can aid in relaxation before bed. Moreover, to get the most of a daily workout, AcousticSheep also developed RunPhones® headphones for added comfort while exercising.
Are SleepPhones® Headphones Right For You?
"I'm one of those people who is very skeptical of promised results on commercials, I think a lot of it is hooey," says Liam. "But I remember getting SleepPhones and going, 'well, I'll just try them, see how they work." It was years ago that Liam first tried SleepPhones, and he is still using them to this day.
"Another thing I really liked [about SleepPhones] is that the people who made them were just a couple of people, it wasn't a big company, it was just a group of people who wanted to do something good," admits Liam. "The cool thing about AcousticSheep is they listen and they care."
Liam continues, "I love that fact that now, if you have insurance with flexible spending, you can get SleepPhones... I'm so glad people are realizing this is a sleep aid and insurance providers are letting people buy them." Liam is right, simply click here to download our Letter of Medical Necessity Form and bring it to your doctor.
Calling SleepPhones® headphones one of his favorite products, David praises our headphones for their comfort, sound quality, and ease-of-use over other devices.
"Listening to relaxation music, general music, audiobooks, podcasts, that sort of stuff is absolutely brilliant with these SleepPhones®," David says. "They're literally covering your ears even though you can hear reasonably, … so for inside use—walking around your home, outside in the garden, in the car, aircraft, sitting on the train, in bed, et cetera—they're absolutely brilliant."
Listen to David's "Demo and chat of AcousticSheep SleepPhones" below.
Here is the transcript:
Hi and welcome to this demo of the AcousticSheep™ SleepPhones® and by the way those two words are actually spelled together so AcousticSheep is one word, SleepPhones is another combined word. If you're interested in having a bit more of a read about SleepPhones® themselves because AcousticSheep™ is actually the company, you can go to SleepPhones.com or you can find these SleepPhones® on Amazon. They basically come in two versions. There's a wired version which is the SleepPhones® Classic, and then there's the Bluetooth® Wireless one which is the one that I've got that I've recently purchased. I always say I haven't got a favorite product but this is one of my favorite products for helping me in particular to relax and certainly go to sleep at nighttime.
So what the SleepPhones® are, remember I said I've got the Bluetooth® Wireless ones here. It's a headband that you wear on your head so if I pop them on now I've got a band that of course is going around my head and the little earphones themselves are actually going over each of my ears, left and right of course. And then where those earphones are in the band are actually inside the band because the band actually has three things inside that you can shimy around to get to the right spot. So you've got your left and right speakers inside the fabric band (and by the way you can get different fabrics and colors). I've got sort of more of an exercise stretchy material. So because these things move inside the band, you can shimy the left and right very flat, soft speakers inside the band to be right over your left and right ear.
Then right at the back of the band, the back of the band has got a little tag on it and you've also got a little loop and hook or Velcro® opening which then allows you to take each of the speakers out and also to the Bluetooth® transmitter. So if I do that now I'm going to unplug the cable that's coming from both the left and right speakers- that's a little micro-USB cable that plugs on to the side of the Bluetooth® transmitter. I've pulled out the little Bluetooth® transmitter and for the moment I'm just going to leave the left and right speakers inside the band itself because what you can also do, you can take these left and right speakers completely out and you can actually wash the band as in get oil from your skin off it to make it nice and clean again. You've just got to remember that as you take them out, you do have a visual indication of which speaker is your left and right. What I tend to do with mine, is I put the speakers down on my bedside table the way that I got them out of the band and then I put them in exactly the same way. And the other trick about putting back in the little flat speakers because they're actually very, very soft is the little sheep skin covering which is very smooth that of course has to be on the side of the band where that's going to be over your ear so you get that nice, comfy feeling. If you're a side sleeper like me and you're sleeping on that side of your head on your pillow.
Alright so as I've said you've got the band that goes around your head. Inside the band you've got the left and right speakers joined by a wire that comes together into a micro-USB connection which I'm now about to soon plug back into the Bluetooth® transmitter.
The Bluetooth transmitter is almost like a little two part bar of chocolate. It's a couple centimeters long, a couple centimeters wide. Very thin basically. And you've got three raised rubber textile buttons. They don't stick out that much but they're very easy to find. The one in the middle is your on/off button. And below and above that button is your volume up and volume down buttons. To turn on you press that middle button. You'll hear a sound, then you'll hear a connection beep. To turn it off you press it again. Or, to pair with your Bluetooth® device i.e. smartphone etcetera, you hold the button in while it's turning on and then release it when you get a beep-beep beep-beep type sound. That means it's in pairing mode and you go to your smartphone and you pair the phone to the AcousticSheep™ SleepPhones®.
Alright so I'm going to plug the micro-USB back into the Bluetooth® transmitter. And by the way when you plug this connector back in, the two little points on the micro-USB connector, they're facing up. So the same side that you've got the buttons on, that's where they're facing up. They're not facing down towards the back of the actual Bluetooth transmitter. So I'm going to pop that back in now. And it does take a little bit of lining up. Okay click. It's in.
So now I simply open up my little Velcro® opening on the back of my headband here. And of course I've currently got it off my head. And you push it into the band, shimmy it along. And then you want it in enough so that you can bring the other opening of the band up and over that little connector. Then you can seal the Velcro® opening. So what I've got now is the Velcro® opening of the band, now this is just me over the actual connector because I think that just gives it a little bit more protection over the connector itself where it joins the Bluetooth® transmitter inside the band.
Then what I normally do is put it on like I've done now. At the moment the left and right speakers are closest to my eyes than they are my ears so I'm going to shimmy them back using my thumb and index finger to push them back so they're over my ears. Very good.
Now I'm going to unlock my phone and then I'm going to take my hand to the back of my head, find the middle button on the Bluetooth® transmitter inside the fabric band. Hold it in. One-Mississippi-release. Couple of beeps. Single beep. And I've not got my AcousticSheep™ SleepPhones® connected in this case to my iPhone. And I must say they're really comfy to use. Particularly when I'm going to sleep at nighttime. Good sound quality. Of course not a huge amount of bass because that's not what they're designed for.
Listen to relaxation music, general music, audiobooks, podcasts, that sort of stuff is absolutely brilliant with these SleepPhones®. One thing I probably should say because they're literally covering your ears even though you can hear reasonably I certainly wouldn't use these outside out and about travelling because they do block out a little bit of the sound around you so for inside use walking around your home, outside in the garden, in the car, aircraft, sitting on the train, in bed, etcetera, they're absolutely brilliant.
Battery-wise I'm not sure the exact recharge on the batteries. I normally take these off in the morning, leave them charging all day, and I probably put them on at 9:00 at night and if I fall asleep and the audio keeps playing they're still going at about 6:00 the next morning. So I'm usually getting about a good 8-9 hours of playtime out of the SleepPhones® themselves. And while we're talking about battery, if you want to charge the Bluetooth® transmitter, you open up the band via the little opening for the Velcro®, undo the micro-USB cable connected to the two left and right earphones, take the Bluetooth® transmitter out, connect it to a micro-USB cable that's plugged into a charger or wall socket and like I do charge them up for the day and then you'll be fine. And of course unplug the Bluetooth® transmitter from the micro-USB, reattach the micro-USB connector for the two headphones, pop the Bluetooth® transmitter back into the band and close the Velcro® opening and off you go again.
I thought I'd just let you know about these AcousticSheep™ SleepPhones®. They're excellent. As I said the website is SleepPhones.com. When you order them, please be aware though besides having different fabrics and colors, you will also be able to get different head size between small, medium, and large.
And they do recommend because the SleepPhones® fabric does actually stretch on the band then if you're between sizes, get the smaller size. If you think you're a medium get a small, if you think you're a large, get a medium because the bands actually do stretch.
I hope that's given you enough information about the SleepPhones®. AcousticSheep™ does have on that SleepPhones.com website quite a few YouTube videos even though they're not audio described they're in good data to get a really good understanding of how the SleepPhones® work in reality. And just one final point, the other reason why I also did buy the SleepPhones® is because I was getting so sick and tired of trying to find my AirPods Pro or just my normal AirPods in the morning. Always fly out of my ear. They'd land somewhere around the bed, under the pillow, behind the bed, on the floor, etcetera. Whereas the worst things that the SleepPhones® do with the band coming off your head is that they'll just shimmy up your head, give yourself remarkable bedhead and normally just lay on the pillow so then you can just pick them up when you wake up in the morning. But there we go that's my demo and a little bit of a chit chat about the SleepPhones® by AcousticSheep™. I hope you've enjoyed listening to the demo and chat and as always thanks for listening and bye for now.
For more from David Woodbridge (VA), find him on X/Twitter (@dwoodbridge) or at the website of his iSee podcast.
