Designing Sleep programs - Information to know

Many people would like to use their AVS machines to help them sleep better. For those of you who want to design your own programs, the following is some relevant information to consider when designing a sleep program.

The length of the program should be 90 minutes as this mimics the average sleep cycle.

I think the most useful program would be that which mimics the natural first cycle of sleep. Sleep cycles do change throughout the night but it doesn't make sense to program for one of those cycles since your brain will go through the first cycle anyway and if that works well, you won't be awake to use the machine in subsequent cycles.

1st Cycle of Sleep is only a few minutes long. You can program a series of segments that begin to ramp down from Beta (15 Hz) to Low Alpha (8 Hz). You could do, let's say, a segment that goes from 15 Hz to 12 Hz. (1 or 2 minutes), the next from 11 to 8 Hz. (1 minutes). The first cycle is a short cycle.

2nd Cycle of sleep goes from 5 to 15 minutes and should be in the range of 6 to 9 Hz, with the occasional burst of 8 - 14 Hz. If you break this segment up into a few segments you can interject the Alpha/SMR segments at a few intervals.

3rd Cycle is 20 to 40 minutes and the range of frequencies are Theta/Delta. 7 Hz to 3 Hz.

4th Cycle is 20 to 40 minutes and is in the Delta range of 2 - 1 Hz.

What happens then, and it's optional whether or not you want to add it to your program, is that the Stage 4 lightens up to Stage 2 for 10-15 minutes and then goes into a brief period of REM (Low Beta) and then it goes back down.

Each REM (dreaming) cycle is followed by at least 30 minutes of non REM sleep.

The EEG on a brain during an REM cycle looks similar to an awake brain, though I don't recommend your program going into too high of a Beta for more than a few seconds because you don't want to wake up.

The easiest method would be to modify one of the Night Voyage Programs on the Procyon.

I will post more information on this subject as I come across it. Reading many books and making notes.:read2:

To anyone who does this, please share your program and results!

M.

Marisa,

I appreciate your experience and insights. This information will be very helpful in my continued development of the Visual Segment Developer. My next phase of development is focused on creating pre-defined sessions based on taking the user from one mental state to another - a sort of to/from. In other words, the user could select "anxious" as their current state of mind, and "relxed, yet awake" as where they want to be. The tool would then create a group of segments based on that planned progression. I'm planning some sort of export feature to PDF or Word, so that the user can then take these numbers and plug them into the Procyon Editor.

I'll likely start my development using your thread here as a reference, as I am a "noob" in the brainwave entrainment arena. If successful, then I'll move on to other "to/from's".

Thanks again for your expertise.

Mark

Hi Mark,

Sounds like an interesting and very involved project. I'm sure you'll learn lots about frequencies, the brain and the editor program in the meantime. I look forward to see what you do with this.

:headbang:

M.

Thanks for the reply Marisa. I've actually been giving a lot of thought today (well, in between that whole work thing :help:) to not making any pre-defined sessions or to/from's. I'm not sure that I want to turn this wonderful technology into a canned process. I had the realization when I awoke this morning that one of the things that gives this technology so much potential is its customizability. Therefore, I believe I'll shift my focus toward ways to make the Visual Segment Developer tool more useful in the overall workflow of designing sessions.

Will keep ya' posted :eusa_think:.....

MT

Hey Mark,

Would the VSD be easier to use than someone going into the editor and modifying one of the pre-existing programs?

M.

Hey M,

I don't think it's so much a matter of ease as it is one of function. Actually, using two different tools makes the process more cumbersome. But, the VSD can do something that isn't possible in the Editor, and that is to show the user visually what they will see once those numbers are run.

The waveforms are more for reference (and they look kinda cool :headbang:); but IMHO, the gradient is what makes the VSD unique in the workflow of designing sessions. Modifying the existing sessions is a great place to start. That's certainly the approach I take in programming too ... not reinventing the wheel. And, once the user modifies a session, they could use the VSD to see what a particular segment may look like across the sweeptime.

MT

Thanks for the information Marisa - I'm trying it out and did have a question.

Is there any point going from 2nd to 3rd cycle if you are obviously not close to sleep. Of course that can be difficult to judge, but if there is a wide-awake, or 'fidgety' feeling will going from 2 to 3 help?
Also from 3 to 4, should you be entering sleep at that stage, and therefore consciously unaware that you have moved into the 4th cycle?

Dave