Insufficient Sleep is a Public Health Epidemic

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - June 4, 2015 - PRLog -- It is estimated that 50-70 million adults in the United States have sleep or wakefulness disorders, according to the Centers for Disease Control, which has declared insufficient sleep a public health epidemic.  A team of University of Notre Dame entrepreneurs has developed a sleep-enhancing kit and app designed to boost college students’ healthy rest, memory, learning, and mental health. The approach is based on the research of Jessica Payne, the Nancy O’Neill Associate Professor of Psychology and director of the Sleep Stress and Memory Lab. Matt Berg, who received his undergraduate degree from Notre Dame in 2012 and master’s degree in 2013, and junior Ryan Gannett work with Payne. Their company, Somni, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for kit manufacturing and app development.

Berg conceived the project after he took Payne’s The Sleeping Brain class as a senior and became aware that sleep is the foundation for learning. “I’m very protective of my sleep now,” he said. “It’s hard to get ahold of me after 10:30 p.m., and I nap almost every day because of Jessica’s class and the benefits I’ve seen from it. If I had known all this as a freshman how much more I would have learned and better my college experience would have been.”

The product includes a kit, designed for convenience both in dorm rooms and on trips, that includes lavender spray, a silk eye mask, organic tea, ear plugs, a humidifying fan, and nasal strips – items chosen after exhaustive pilot studies at Notre Dame because they proved most effective in creating a sleep routine and enhancing the sleep experience. The application includes a sleep tracking feature to help improve behavior and awareness, access to dozens of brief video clips by Payne that cover key insights about sleep, and a way to reorder supplies.

Under the guidance of Dennis Boyle, a Notre Dame alumnus and founding partner at the design firm IDEO, they have conducted more than a year of pilot studies with hundreds of students and shown that Somni users average an additional 19 minutes of sleep per night – almost a week’s worth across a year – with a 12 percent increase in feeling well rested, a 13 percent increase in alertness, and an 11 percent increase in ability to focus.

“Because the benefits of sleep compound, getting 20 extra minutes of sleep each day ultimately leads to big benefits in learning and well-being,” Payne says. The team is exploring other markets such as medicine, business, and transportation.

Somni is backed by the research of a university sleep expert. Somni is a monthly, subscription-based box of tools, including sleep coaching from one of the world’s experts on sleep and learning, a sleep tracking app and more.” To learn more about Somni check out the Kickstarter campaign, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/puresomni/somni-reth...