Biofeedback

I learnt about this wonderful technology first from Dr. Judd
Biasiotto's book "In Search of Greatness." He was a sport
psychologist and champion weight lifter. At a bodyweight of
130 lbs, he squated 603 lbs. Pavel told the story that at a
meet Dr. Judd would fall fast asleep, a few minutes before
his event, his coach would wake him up, and without warm-up
he would go on stage and start breaking records.

I have no intention of breaking any record soon but, since 
learning about sleep from Matthew Walker's book, I became
interested in ways to gain some control over it. Jetlags
from trips between the US and China and stress from work are
two obvious nuisances to get rid of or at least mitigate
with better sleep.

Judd described in his book how, decades ago, he learnt to 
induce deep muscle relaxation using a biofeedback machine at
a state-of-the-art sport academy. With sensors attached to
certain facial areas (e.g., the frontalis) that tighten up
when one's under stress, the device could measure that 
tension and send out beeping/clicking sounds. The stronger
the tension and therefore higher the stress level, the
louder and more frequent the beeping. Dr. Judd struggled for
months tenaciously and finally mastered it. In his words:
        
        I got so good with the machine that I could play the
        nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on it by
        raising and lowering the clicks. It was a vulgar
        display of power.

I kept looking out for such a device since early this year
and finally got a simple one a month ago. Different from
(and much cheaper than) the Dr.'s, my device has three
sensors touching the forehead and a knob for sensitivity.
The more touchy it is tuned, the weaker the tension the
device can pick up. With some calibration, I have divided
its sensitivity range into seven levels. After one week, I
was able to muffle the device at level one, and after a 
month of training, I was close to silencing it at level two.

It's hard to say how much training with the device so far
has benefited my sleep. One change, though, is that it has
brought awareness and helped shaping a meditation habit.
Twice a day, I wound get into my car, put on the headset, 
and try to relax for about 20-30min. When trying to solve a
problem, I found it hard to quiet the device down but
normally it was helpful to lure the mind into some pre-sleep
state. The sessions always left me more alert. 
 
Dr. Judd moved on to brain wave control next. I intend to
follow him after mastering my device at level seven.

[7grizzly]

回复 '暖冬cool夏' 的评论 : Thanks for stopping by. I think the habit to relax intentionally might be the best thing out of this adventure. As for reading for relaxation, my experience is that it helps only when I don't need it :)))

[暖冬cool夏]

Very interesting device, and thanks for sharing. I guess meditation or some kind of relaxation (sucu as imagining in a state of shower where warm water flows from head to chest) helps. Sometimes reading helps fast sleep too.:)