episode#254

254: Ramona von Leden, PhD, Neuroscientist & Scientific Affairs Advisor at Neuronic: Bad Sleep? Neuroscientist Explains How A Light Helmet Could Help

Biography

Ramona is a neuroscientist and scientific strategist with deep experience at the intersection of neuroscience, rehabilitation, and emerging health technologies. She earned her BS in Psychology from Brown University, her PhD in Neuroscience from the Uniformed Services University (where her research focused on the modulation of inflammation following Neurotrauma, including publications on the impact of photobiomodulation on microglial activation), and she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Neurology Department at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School.  

Ramona is the Senior Director of US Medical Affairs for Winback America, and serves as a Scientific Advisor for two start ups, Neuronic and the Brainnovation Network. She specializes in translating complex science into real-world clinical and commercial outcomes — from leading research and publication efforts to building clinician training programs. In these roles, she oversees clinical research, education, and regulatory positioning. At Neuronic specifically, she supports research efforts to demonstrate the efficacy of transcranial photobiomodulation on cognitive function and a variety of neurological conditions. 

She is passionate about leveraging technology to help people achieve their highest quality of life and brings a practical, collaborative approach to connecting science, clinical practice, and business strategy.

In this episode, we discuss:

😴 How did Ramona von Laden go from neuroscience to sleep tech strategy at Neuronic?

😴 Why is photobiomodulation sleep more than just “red light therapy”?

😴 Can light help TBI sleep issues by calming a dysregulated nervous system?

😴 How can 40 Hz support focus while 10 Hz helps you wind down?

😴 What does it mean when your sleep latency suddenly drops to minutes?

😴 How does light charge mitochondria instead of stimulating the brain?

😴 What is the glymphatic system, and why does sleep unlock brain cleanup?

😴 How might light improve blood flow and nitric oxide for calm and recovery?

😴 What do early Neuronic studies suggest about insomnia and sleep quality?

😴 Why can near-infrared light work even if you cannot see it?

😴 What simple night routine upgrades made the biggest difference for sleep?

😴 What is the big takeaway from Why We Sleep, and why is sleep non-negotiable for brain health?

😴 Discover how Neuronic can support your  brain health through the power of light.
Use code SLEEPISASKILL to save $100 on your entire order. Minimum purchase of USD 500 required.



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Transcription

Welcome to the Sleep As a Skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of Sleep as A Skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability, and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world thinks about sleep.

Each week I'll be interviewing World Class X. Experts ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness.

And I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health and by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.

We talk a lot about light and sleep, sunlight by day, darkness at. But what about light use as a targeted tool for the brain? Today we're getting into a fascinating area, photobiomodulation, what the science actually says, what we still do not know, and where something like a light helmet used on the brain could potentially fit into.

Sleep, recovery and brain performance. Ramona von Laden is a neuroscientist and scientific strategist with deep experience at the intersection of neuroscience, rehabilitation, and emerging health technologies. She earned her BS in psychology from Brown University. Her PhD in neuroscience from the Uniformed Services University, where her research focused on the modulation of inflammation following neurotrauma, including publications on the impact of photobiomodulation on microglial activity.

And she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the neurology department at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School. Now Ramona Acts as a scientific affairs advisor at Neuro, bringing years of experience turning, cutting edge. Science into real world brain health solutions. With a PhD in neuroscience and a background spanning neuro rehab and biotech, she's helping guide research and scientific vision.

She's passionate about leveraging technology to help people achieve their highest quality of life and bring a practical, collaborative approach to connecting science, clinical practice and business strategy. Now, let's get into it. Welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast. I'm so excited to have this conversation today, not just because for conversation's sake or another podcast episode about sleep, and these are all important, but I genuinely love this product and I use it all the time.

I have multiple clients that also use it, so I can't wait to discuss more all about it, and at the same time, I'm so 

excited to welcome you maybe a little bit about how you found yourself in this role with. This product. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. I'm super, super excited to be on the podcast with you today.

This is fun. It's not only is it, yes, I'm excited to talk about the product. Yes. But sleep is a very important topic to me in general, so totally stay. Yeah. So as I, I have my PhD in neuroscience. I really worked on traumatic brain injury and a big component, and one of the biggest symptoms of that is. An impact on sleep.

Totally. Yeah. And so, uh, that's always been in the back of my mind, I think we all know this, right? Sleep is so vital to your wellbeing, to how you feel, right? If you have bad night's sleep, you have a good night's sleep, it completely changes how the next day is gonna go for you. Yeah. And finding ways, whether it's your sleep hygiene and your sleep habits, and then.

Little bits, different products that can help support that process so that you feel your best when you are awake. Yes. Is just massively important. So I came to Neuronic. I love working with startups. I think it's super fun to see what people who are really passionate about what they do can build without like the con confines and constraints of like a bigger corporation.

Yes. And so the neuro team, like super young, inspired. Hungry, energetic, and they've made this really cool product where I've, as I said, when I was in my PhD work, I did some research on photobiomodulation, which is light therapy. Yes. So that we make sure that we say it like the easy way to remember it, but that's smart.

Essentially what we're doing is we're modulating the body in some way using light or photos. Photo. Yeah. And. The good and the bad. There's lots of different ways to get light therapy these days. Of course, the most important being just like walking outside and enjoying the sunshine. Yes, exactly. But if you can't get outside for whatever reason, right?

There are red light panels, these red light beds, all these different ways, but most of them, like you're stuck in one place. Mm-hmm. And you can't really do much. You can't really move around. And what's so brilliant about those products is. It's a helmet you like can put it on, you can go about your day and continue to do your business without it really impacting your life, but you're getting that benefit at the same time.

Yeah. So I thought it was just a really smart way to do it. Obviously, again, if you're interested in brain health, putting something onto the head is going to be a little bit more focused. Yeah. So I've been working with the team about. Almost eight months now and just really enjoying One really cool thing about Neuron is they put all of their proceeds back into research.

So we actually our, wow, I didn't realize that. Yeah. So we're actually really dedicated to advancing the field of late therapy. It's not just words. Yeah. Like our profits go directly back into the projects that we're working on. That's amazing. Yeah. Okay. So I don't think I've ever seen a startup. Have as many people on the research team as they do, but that's why it's 'cause we were, yeah, that a big part of who we are.

Ugh, that's incredible. I, because I was always impressed and interested in just how much research was happening, but I didn't realize the dynamic and the setup and the proceeds. That's incredible. Yeah. Okay. So clearly passion not connected to this product. And my understanding too is that. As you mentioned in your background, then this focus on TBI and we've done a few podcast episodes on what appears to be pretty interesting, what could be a common correlation with amount of, or TBIs and percentage of people maybe dealing with sleep thereafter?

Yeah. In some way, shape or form, whether more acute or. Chronically, and certainly you can speak to this more, but so if someone is listening and dealing with TBIs and sleep issues could potentially be something that they could utilize. Yeah, absolutely. I think if you look across the board with the literature on any sort of.

Neurodegenerative condition, whether that's an Alzheimer's disease, a dementia, or frankly A TBI, because that falls into that category, these phase, as you're seeing an impact on the cells. That's very similar to what in neurodegenerative disease, sleep is almost always like the first. Like symptom, right?

Yes. Because your neuro, your nervous system has become dysregulated. Yes. And that has an autonomic effect, right? Like you're getting, usually if there was a TBI or some kind of trauma to the body, whether that's associated with an experience, you're seeing an increase in sympathetic nervous system activity.

Yes. So your fight or flight is just more turned on and it's harder to turn it. Right. And we always want to shift as we wind down from our day Yes. Into the parasympathetic, the rest and digest. And if your neurons are and your cells are firing in a little bit unusual or dysregulated pattern, that can often be really difficult to do.

But that's where tools like this can come in to help modulate those cells, help shift the brainwaves into more of those restful states. That's another one, right? When we sleep, we have these kind of al alpha and delta brainwaves that are more the relaxed state. Yes. The restful state and using something like this light can.

Help with that, especially the way that it's delivered. I was actually on a call this morning where we were talking about different pulses and how you can create this lymphatic activity by creating a pulsing sensation with light that helps to move blood flow and move things around. And that encourages the brain and encourages the entire nervous system to start to move towards that more relaxed state.

Hmm. So it can be really helpful for someone who's dealing with a traumatic brain injury. Certainly. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. And then if someone's listening, I don't have a traumatic brain injury, but yeah, I am either looking to support the ease by which falling asleep or minimize wake up and or they're just, they're tracking and they're trying that little tips and tricks to shift things and change the results.

You foresee or could see that this could be a potential add-on to with those goals? Absolutely. Okay. I think this is a really big addition to any. Healthy person or non-healthy person's. Yes, like daily life. It's interesting because I think I would say across the board, probably more people ha struggle with sleep in general than any other thing probably in our world.

And whether that is because of a hormonal imbalance or because of just daily stressors, right? Like yes, work, stress, life stress, family stress doesn't have to be an injury. That's always gonna be. A more pronounced way of looking at it. Mm-hmm. Because we have this idea, this happened and now we can see this has changed.

Yes. But the number of people with insomnia, the number of people who have trouble falling asleep at night. And frankly, it does have a lot to do with environments like the Yes. Lack of natural light. The light, the. Being under the bright lights at night. Like I was listening to a couple of your podcast episodes where they were talking about let, making sure that you're in dim lights, red lights, getting rid of the blue light at night to help encourage your bodies down.

How many of us have just been like, oh, I've gotta work on this presentation, and you're sitting in bed at nine 30 at night. I was actually doing this last night. I'm not proud of it, but like I appreciate, I'm on my, I'm on my laptop working at this at nine 30 at night, but I've got my blue light blocker.

Yes. Glasses on. Yes. To try to prevent that from impacting like my sleep as I'm getting ready for bed afterwards. Sure. So it's very much something that is, it's easy to integrate into someone's day-to-day life and it can have a great impact whether somebody is dealing with an actual injury or a condition or not.

Actually, it was really fun. We were at a, a. Show here or a, an a co conference here in town in Austin in the fall called the Team Luke event. That's for people, families who are dealing with their kids have had a TBI. Oh, wow. And a lot of the families that would come up, they'd be like, oh, how would this help my child?

But they'd be like, but hey, guess what? You can also use it for yourself. Yeah, exactly. And they'd be like, wait, I can use it. It's helpful for me. And it's again, like it's the whole family. You're a caregiver, you're probably dealing with some stress of your own, right? Oh yes. This can also help you feel more relaxed.

And they were like, wow, this is awesome. Like they can use it and I can use it. Like it just, it's like it's fun for the whole family. Yeah. Try out Exactly. Too cheesy about it. No, to, I was just on Emma Willis' podcast, the wife of Bruce Willis in dealing right with his, so he's certainly from a neurological perspective, dealing with some kind of struggle.

Is there with dementia and looking at the fact that this could be supportive, not just for someone that's dealing with something acute. Mm-hmm. But also she's doing a lot for the caretaker community, especially my husband had, his dad had late, really just severe a LS and then past of that and just seeing the impacts for caretakers just in dealing with something like that.

So yes. I love that. Thank you for, and that's the thing I grew up with. Not a lot of money in a trailer in Maine and just welfare and all the things. So I'm always mindful of where people are investing money, especially. 'cause it can feel like sometimes when you get into this world of sleep, it's how much money do I have to Yeah.

Spend of leisure. Sure. And so sometimes there can be this sentiment of what. Makes sense to invest in. And yet I am such a believer on the power of light for overall health and wellbeing. So exciting for what we see around circadian health, quantum biology, and the difference it can make in overall health and wellbeing and by a clear measurement system, your sleep results, but certainly something like this.

So targeted. And I know we chatted before we hit record that. What I see too is people will invest in some of these things and they might invest in like a red light panel, which are great. Often it takes, there's a barrier to entry. Often you have to sit there with not a lot of clothes on and how much time are people gonna honestly and consecutively commit to doing that?

Whereas something like this, we were just laughing that we can be unloading the dishwasher and utilizing this with the rest of our lives and letting it slip in. Yeah. So for me, while some, sometimes some of these things can be some sort of investment that. The more kind of cost per use that we can, you know, support.

I'm using this thing like every day. And so a little bit too about what if people are deciding, okay, I know I wanna invest in my sleep. I got a little bit of a budget here. Why this might be particularly far reaching or impactful. Yeah. That's all of those things. Yes. So first of all, yeah, I think. Actually you mentioning the, where you were brought up.

Yeah. I think that for often in families that are maybe on the lower income side, yeah, they don't have time. Like everybody, your time is very valuable, whether it's you're taking care of your kids, you're working, maybe you're working multiple jobs, like you just don't have time to sit in front of a red light panel.

Yes. And frankly, even if you are in a more privileged. Environment and you have a little bit more time in your day. Yeah, I know. I'm like the worst at this. If I have something where I had to just sit there in front of it. Yeah. Maybe I'll do it. Maybe I won't. Totally. Yeah, and so that was like, yeah, as I, we were talking about before, it's the ability to like put it on and forget it while you're doing other things.

Yeah. I like to do it twice a day. I'll usually start in the morning. I do, I like the focus protocol and we go, why? In a second. But I'll put it on and I'll do that while I am like. Prepping my C morning coffee. Yes. Or checking emails. And it's just the battery pack goes in your pocket and you don't think about it.

And then at night, right before bed, when I'm brushing my teeth, I throw the peace protocol on. And then, and I, and again, it's become such a habit that now if I have to travel, I and I don't have it, I'm like, oh, this feels weird. Yes. Uh, but it doesn't take, it doesn't take any more time. It doesn't, it's very easy to integrate into your life.

Similarly, the app that we have to run the helmet is also very user friendly. Mm-hmm. It's designed to be, right? Yes. Like the protocols are there. You don't have to like. Do much to get going on it. We can always create something custom if that's really something you wanna do. Sure. But it's very user friendly and it's supposed to be simple.

It's like you turn it on. Yes, you do it and then it's just in, in that way it does integrate into your life in a much more holistic way. Yeah, a hundred percent. And one of the things that I've appreciated about it is, to your point, 'cause you can just select different kind of programs and paths and if you're also.

So in a rush and don't even have access to your phone at the moment. You can still use it without the app too, which is, yeah, in this day and age, I feel like the more you have optionality there just, it's one less thing. Same with everything you, how you set up your day. That's a big part for me too. Just in the morning it's like.

Putting it on, doing the stuff I gotta do. And that stacking and the ease of doing that, just fantastic. But I'm not doing as much of the evening. So you've, you're liking the evening protocol too? Yeah. The different protocols that we have in the app right now. So there's four basic protocols, right? We call them glow, focus, balance and piece.

I, I'm. Talk through every single one. Several, yeah. But like, let's talk about those two that I mentioned. Yes. What the reason I like them is for very, for completely opposite reasons, the focus protocol uses a pulse rate of 40 hertz, which in the research and the literature, we consistently see that 40 hertz, it's similar to more gamma brain waves.

Mm-hmm. Essentially, we're supporting and we're trying to stimulate more gim activity, more awakeness, more alertness from it. Mm-hmm. On the flip side, the peace protocol uses 10 hertz pulse rate. It's also at a much lower stimulation intensity. Okay. So again, the focus, you're gonna have a higher stimulation intensity.

The piece is low intensity with a low short pulse weight. And in the literature, that's another one. Alpha brainwaves are more in that 10 hertz range. Hmm. So we're trying to mimic and match the more restful state. Brainwaves. Sure. And doing it at that low intensity. This is where we talk about like circadian rhythms, light in general.

We wanna get more of it during the daytime. You wanna get up and get some sunlight first thing in the day. That's like probably the best thing you can do for your circadian rhythms. Yeah. Is, thank God it. My dog makes sure every morning Oh, totally. It's okay. We get up and we go outside. Yeah. And we get that morning sunshine so good.

And then as you go through the day and you're getting into the later parts of your day, especially because of us all living in fluorescent light or Mm. Not natural light at night. Yeah. And necessity at this point. Yeah. The more you can start to turn that down and calm the amount of light that you're taking in mm-hmm.

As you get towards bedtime, the better. And so even using a little bit of simulation, we're making sure it's just very low level. Yes. And frankly, from my own personal experience, the Peace Protocol is my favorite. It works super well. Great. I anecdotally, like I, I was sharing with you before. We started recording was when I started using the Peace Protocol.

I was like, yeah, that seems like a nice thing to add to my day. And then I would get into bed right after doing my Peace Protocol, brushing my teeth, and I'd start to read my book and I would fall asleep in three minutes. Yeah. And I was like at, I was a friend and I were reading the same book, and he would be like, oh, I'm on this chapter.

And I'm like, I have not gotten, I have read four pages that is So I was like, I'm falling asleep too fast. Good problem have, it's fantastic to have. But I was like, oh my God, this is working too well. Yes. Wow, that's so interesting. So you noticed like with that sleep latency, like a marked shift? Yes. And it was the only, I don't think I've had anything.

In my life that was that quick of a change. Wow. Like usually you can adjust things like certainly just general good sleep hygiene and will make a difference. But it was such, I was like shocked. I was like, oh my God, I can't believe how much that changed the, like the, my ability to fall asleep, which is like boom out.

Geez. Very cool. Okay. I know there's a lot of people listening that are dealing with that and just like this long stretch of time to be able to fall asleep and or stay asleep. So the idea of maybe having some support with that Yeah. Is exciting. And then maybe a little bit more about the why that something like this could be helpful directly supporting sleep.

I know we mentioned mitochondria, glymphatic drainage and different things that might be useful for people to understand of how that. All connects. Yeah. So let's, let's start from two places. Okay. Great. One is understanding what light does to our mitochondria. Yeah. A good way to think about it is we usually, we often use the term that light is stimulating brain, but that's not really accurate.

Rather, light is more like a, it's charging yourself. Light will have a big impact on mitochondria. It helps to increase energy protection. So you can think about it like a battery, like it's charging up your cells, different light ranges. So whether it's red, red, light, near infra, right? Different wavelengths can have a little bit different impact on the cells, but all of them across the board have some impact on mitochondria.

Okay? What's cool? And our products, we use a longer wavelength for a very specific reason. We wanna penetrate deeper into the skull and into the brain. The shorter wavelengths just don't have as deep a penetration. So when your target. Something for brain health. You want that deeper penetration. Sure. Now, here's where kind of this ties into your glymphatic system, so the G glymphatic system, which you may have addressed previously on the podcast.

Yes. I'm sure you have. Especially with how it relates to sleep. It's very tight, glymphatic. Circulation is very tied to our circadian rhythms. Mm. So you see a huge change to how it, the glymphatic system functions at night when you're asleep than during the day. And part of that is as you fall asleep, your brain, your neurons in your cells actually shrink a little bit.

Mm-hmm. Make more space in the brain for the cerebral spinal fluid to move around. And that's. If your glymphatic system is moving things out, it's getting rid of the toxic stuff that you've built up throughout the day. It's just, it's eliminating waste, it's moving things out. I saw a, a correlation of the glymphatic system to being like the janitor coming into the school at night.

Yes, yes. Just getting everything out of there, so. What light will do as part of that to support that G glymphatic process is it helps to increase blood flow. So if you're getting that vascularization, it helps with oxygenation. It impacts pathways like the nitric oxide pathway, as well as in the inflammatory side, which is like tri oxide pathways related to.

You'll actually see this hasn't so much been done in human studies yet, but in animal models, there's some really interesting and really compelling data that shows it actually will shift to MI microglial. Activation states, depending on how you're using it, pulse rate, intensity, et cetera. Shifting it more ideally towards an anti-inflammatory response, as well as you'll actually see it in people in, again, in animal models, they do these like dementia models and it'll actually show that it helps to eliminate and move beta amyloid and tau out of the brain.

So light has a huge impact, and that's why I say. It really supports glymphatic movements. Sure. In a big way. Wow. That's so interesting. Yeah. I tend to have low blood pressure, if anything, and then after my TBI, I've had different practitioners and sometimes a little more woo, sometimes less woo. Yeah. And, but certainly some kind.

Bone spurs and certain things. So there's been questions of the ability to, for blood pressure and for blood flow to the brain. Interesting. So this, maybe this doesn't apply to everyone, but just making me think. Yeah. Uh, just potentially even, could a theory be supportive with the specific light source right to the brain?

It is really my case, but maybe in other people's cases with how you're sharing and that, I love how you talked about the charging aspect. Mm-hmm. Because I think we're starting to get into the conversation, or certainly it comes up a lot on this podcast and our courses and newsletter about mitochondrial health and its support for sleep.

Just more and more angles of how to really be able to visualize that throughout the course of a day. Almost can become like this racket of, oh yeah, I know I'm supposed to get my sun life for sleep, but, but then when you really break it down like that just can make such a difference. And just also our results, because sometimes then people are saying they can get hung up on these numbers with their trackers.

Maybe a little, almost obsessive with these trackers. Yep. And then looking for these kind of tweaks, but. Ultimately, if our goal is simply to be able to sleep well and feel rested and rejuvenated to live a big life, then it sounds like this could potentially be one of those more direct paths if you're considering how do I uplevel the amount of light that I'm being exposed to and also being sensitive to where people are on the globe.

When I lived in Maine, growing up in Maine, right? Went to school in Syracuse, lived in Manhattan. There were big stretches of time throughout the year where just the light quality was not. Quite there from a perspective of just lesser intensity and ability to get all of these benefits from the light sources that are available.

Yeah. That's an interesting thing you bring up too with Geo Geographic light. Yes. Is I think farther north you get, especially in the wintertime, you'll see higher levels of like anxiety, depression, things that when Totally, when they're not, there's just not a lot of light. Right? Yes. You're in the dark all the time.

Yeah, and this can be something that, yeah, if you're in one of those regions, you can use light to help. Counteract that, right? Yes. It's either the SE seasonal affective disorder is not. It's a real thing. It's a real thing. Yeah. We don't feel as charged as happy. Yes. And I think that's, I made a note to say something about this.

I think. In general, when we think about our bodies as like energetic beings, yeah. There's different energy types that we respond to all energy, frankly, whether it's light, whether it's electricity. Yeah. Whether it's magnetism. Sure. Whether it all of these different light energetic sources, and frankly, I'd say this to people when we talk about this device as well.

We're all gonna respond differently to different sources. Yes. Some people are going to have a bigger response to something like electrical energy. Mm-hmm. Some people are gonna have a bigger response to light. Yes, yes. Like bipolar individuals or what have you. Sure. Exactly. And so that's part of kind of the journey in figuring out how to best support your sleep, is trying all of these different things and seeing which one has the biggest impact on you.

And honestly, the wearables. They're fun and there's great ones like AA rings and whoops, do a pretty good job. But frankly, I. Kind of hate wearables for tracking sleep. Yeah. Because how many people do you know that they're like, maybe. And I've certainly had this happen where I wake up and I'm like, God, I feel like I just got a great night of sleep.

Yes. And you look at your wearable and it's like it was okay. Yeah. And you got the no seeable effects like, and I felt like I slept super well. I'm super. Energetic and awake and I don't feel at all fatigued. Yes. And like the wearables telling you, same thing with HRV, we mentioned this earlier, HRV, it's a fantastic measurement to track where your overall health is, but you have to be pretty careful about what you're using to actually look at it.

Yes. Especially as I say, I wear an Apple watch. I love my Apple Watch, but I never it to track HV because Yeah, if you just look at their general HRV, it's like it's looking at the whole day. It's not tracking one small amount of time. So noisy. Yeah, it's so noisy. You can't really get any, and same thing for HRV overnight.

Mm-hmm. Like I can't, it doesn't tell me anything. Yeah. So I think this is something where I think putting the, a little bit of the ownership back into the user's hands of what is your subjective experience with sleep. Yes. Because that's really matters. Love data. We as a. Society as a world we, data is such a huge part of everything now, but we have to take it with a little bit of a grain of salt.

Mm-hmm. What is the objective data saying, but how are you subjectively feeling? Yes. That's a huge part of it. And that's where again, and that's something actually I really like. This device is simple. Like it has an app, it runs yeah's, not like telling you did great, like it's, you got your. Yeah, exactly.

Check the box. Yes. And that's what we're going for, simplicity in some of these. 'cause if you really try to stack all these routines, you'll lose your mind. And you got the AS sauna, the cold blood to the red light, the PFF mats, the hyperbaric, the a lot of things. And so just what are some of the big needle movers?

And I'm a big believer in the power of light. Part. Part of why I moved to Austin was because I could live a more circadian aligned lifestyle with more ease. You could be outside in the freezing cold and sometimes it would be like negative 15 or something, but so you could be out there. But for how to have this.

Just be really just a natural way of life where you choose to live and what type of light environment you are exposed to is gonna impact in a particular way. Absolutely. Um, and then how can you supplement when you are in these Northern Latitude location or just any, anywhere. 'cause so many of us are indoors.

Like how much The EPA found, well over 90% back in 2001. And I'm sure it's way worse now. So how to. Supplement for wherever we are. Yeah. To make that difference. So I know you all had been so great with really looking different types of research in various areas of how something like this could support health.

What ha have we seen for things that are directly sleep centric and or sleep adjacent, nervous system regulation, other things that might be pertinent. From our research or from general research? Well, that's a good point. Either plucking directly from the things that you're looking at right now with this in particular, yeah.

That could be noteworthy. Or if you think there is really powerful research that would be of similar modalities. Yeah. Yeah. I think. First of all, I'll say, just give the shout out to my team. We've got a ton of projects in the pipeline that are in process in the works, but have published three papers so far, which like if you know anything about research like it, it takes a lot, a lot public paper out.

So the fact that they've got three, congratulations. Yes. Great job. Yes. And all three of them have some component of a. Sleep aspect to it. So one that we published was a case series looking at three people who had anxiety or depressive disorder. I believe I looked at that one. Yeah. And then that one, like across the board, they all had a little sub.

Again, their reactions are a little different because they're all coming from a different starting point. Okay. All of them had subjectively improved sleep quality. They all reported feeling like their sleep quality was better, which is really cool. Yeah, and that's small. It's only three people, of course.

But then when we get into the larger studies, we did one where we were actually, we use a couple different wavelengths of life with this device versus our old device. And is there one better than the other? In the grand scheme of things, no wavelength of light is necessarily. Better than the other. Just used for different things.

Yeah. Yeah. So if, when we spoke about there's red light, there's near infrared light, the red light generally like it's gonna be, 'cause it does have a shorter wavelength and doesn't penetrate as deeply, the research supports it being better for things like use a lot for skin health for mm-hmm. More aesthetic.

Yeah, aspects. And then as you get to those longer wavelengths, you're gonna get deeper penetration so we can get deeper into the tissue. Again, we're talking here looking to get deep into the, the actual cortical structures and ours, one of our studies we saw across the board when we were looking at insomnia indexes that everyone's insomnia index was improving.

So we're saying that people again, hallelujah. It's not just about falling asleep, right? Yes. It's you have to be able to actually stay asleep. Exactly. And get, get like a good night's sleep, which I would say is. The most common reason people come our way to either the content or programs is wake ups. The, that's probably one of the, and of course sometimes we'll see the difficulty both falling asleep and staying asleep or primary in either angle, but wake up I think would, is the one that we hear the most about.

Yeah. And then in general, the research across the board in like the sleep world, there's a lot of variability in the study designs for photobiomodulation studies, frankly. 'cause you can't, there's so many different wavelengths, there's different pulses, there's different intensities. So it's hard to like group it all into one data.

But in general, most studies, whether it's on TBI, whether it's in attention, so that's more like a healthy brain, but maybe it's one that's A DHD or even ones that are just like, oh, I'm just. I'm tired and fatigued and stressed. Yeah. Always. There's market improvement in sleep and usually it's related somewhat kind of lines up with those brainwaves like you're seeing that you can either create a more of a stimulation for gamma if you're using it at those higher intensities or create that lower stimulation alpha brainwave that helps support sleep.

Wow. So interesting. Okay, so. We've talked a lot about different things that could, how this could be supportive for sleep. Maybe we should show what this looks like. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Sometimes it's like we talk about it, but people are like, what does it actually look like? I've never gotten, I've never, I always just have mine.

I've never gotten to do a session. I, me neither. This is pretty exciting. Oh, and I should just show to the ease, and this is without the app, so this is like our automatic one and done, but press and then we're good. That makes its three beeps and here we go. And here we go. Exactly. And then just the ease of, put it in your pocket.

Just set it down next to us. Exactly. That's great. I know, and I want to be clear too, 'cause in my husband is always making fun of our house where we just got gadgets all over the place. 'cause people will sit over the years being the sleep space for so long, people just send a lot of stuff to try for sleep and.

Commonly, sadly, or for whatever reason, or maybe it was a good thing, you don't need honestly that much typically to sleep well. 'cause a lot of the things that I'll receive are collecting dust. Sure. They'll like end up in the graveyard, the gadget graveyard. But this is one of the rare ones that I am walking around the house.

I'm like, where I was telling Sharon to you before coming over here, I was outside with it, doing my makeup and the thing, and just the ease by which you can bring it in is a big deal because it's, again, it's that cumulative effect. Otherwise, if you just only do this. Once in a blue moon, it's just not gonna make the difference.

I will say it's the only thing, I've been working in med tech for the better part of a decade and I worked some with some very cool products, but it's, this helmet is the only thing that both of my parents have been like, can I get one? No. And this is speaking to the ease of use and being able to fold it in big population.

And a big for us as a company is going to be elderly population. Yes. Which of course, that's a huge one for sleep, but also right as we know, like. The risk of dementia, the risk of neurodegeneration goes way up when you don't have good quality sleep. And so that's something that, like when my mom was like, can I get one?

I was like, yes, absolutely. I wanna help support like that. It's such a big way. And it's the same thing. She sends me pictures and she's like, look, here I am. I'm doing my night lease. Sleep. And it's just, it's great to have that be something that, people see it on my shelf too. They come over and they're like, what's that?

And I'm like, you wanna try it? Yes. It's very approachable. It's very simple. Mm-hmm. Uh, it, it is that thing that like, yeah, it's easy. You do it once a day, twice a day, whatever it however you want. And like it just. It's simplicity at its finest. Exactly. No, I find that to be such a big deal. And then maybe, I'm glad you mentioned too, 'cause we do talk a lot about, when we're mentioning glymphatic drainage and then what appears to be some of this, these correlations between these neurogenerative disorders, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia, et cetera.

And I'm wondering. For people that are tuning in, and part of the reason they're starting to really invest time, energy, and effort into their sleep is they have a parent that dealt with Alzheimer's. They see that it runs in their family, certain neurodegenerative disorders. And so how that might be supportive in this whole.

Soup of supporting sleep and overall health. Yeah, actually a really interesting anecdote I was with on a meeting this morning with some folks about a research study and they connected us. They have a clinic where this is the patient population they work with. They work with people who are dealing with dementia and they have a protocol for this that they use where they start them out on for a month, they do a 10 minute and they build them up.

So they're doing more light over time. And what they said is in the thi first 30 days. They almost across the board, everyone reports better sleep. That's the first thing they say. Oh, interesting. And they're not even doing like the peace protocol, they're just, they're just doing what we call the glow, which is the, yeah, the what we have on right now.

Right now, which is like the full intensity, just light. And so they have them do it once a day and during the daytime and across the board, all their patients are saying, okay, at night I'm sleeping better. Mm. And then they said in month. Two, that the patients don't report feeling that different. Mm-hmm.

And in month two, they start to incorporate that focus protocol. So they add the focus, they stack it on top. Okay. But the family members are like, they're having an easier time getting words. They're having an easier time with recall. Right. And it's one of those where sometimes we don't notice something is changing in ourselves Totally.

But the people around us do. Yeah. And then by, they said by month three, even the people who are, who. Are using it and aren't seeing the change at first, by month three, they're even noticing the difference. Wow. So it's really cool to see that where the family members can see the change and then they can, 'cause that's.

Part of the challenge with any sort of therapeutic modality is compliance. Right? And if somebody is, I don't really see it making any difference, then they might not be compliant. But if their family members know it's making a difference, you need to do this every single day. Yes. You'll keep using it.

Totally. And so that was like, I'm so happy I had that call this morning. 'cause it was just really good timing. Yeah. It like, wow, that's super cool to like track it. And they've been doing this for the. Like a year, like with dozens of patients. And this is like their consistent kind of pattern that they built.

Wow, that's so fascinating. I'm so glad that you saw that just today. That's fantastic timing because we do hear so much of that. 'cause there was for so long this concept that there wasn't a lot you could do to prevent some of these disorders and just hope that it doesn't run in the family or certain things.

And now things have changed over the years where it appears that there are certain things that we could be doing either in advance. And sleep seems to be falling into that bucket of a possible thing that we could be supporting maybe decades in advance of any of these potential symptoms. But then something along these lines, photobiomodulation, whether preemptively or in tandem if we're actively dealing with something like this.

So powerful. And before we shift over into how you're managing your own. Sleep. I know this is such a huge topic, but is there anything that we left out or anything to put a bow on of the power of things like photobiomodulation, the helmet in particular, and sleep? I think one thing that would be great to talk about Yeah.

Is for your audience to understand different kinds of photobiomodulation. We mentioned this. Yes. One thing that is unique about our products is we use a near infrared wavelength. Thank you. Yeah. And so people, you put it on and people are like, I don't see anything because near infrared is not visible to the eye.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's not working. And in fact, like we've got this really cool filter that we made this video that kind of shows you how if you want to see the light that it is being emitted. Yes. You can use these specific filters to actually be able to see it. It actually, you should. Maybe I'll send it to you after today.

Yes, please. 'cause this video is cool. One of our scientific advisors, Lisa Laska, who's an Australian researcher, she showed us and it's so funny 'cause she's puts, she's in the filter and she puts the helmet on and it's just like this giant glowing orb around her. Really. But yeah, if you were just looking at it.

Like this. Yeah. Right. You never see anything. And so that's where like understanding what the different types of light do for you and understanding what that experience might be like. For me, I don't really feel anything per se. Mm-hmm. When I bring it on some people, but again, if you're some more sensitive to light, yeah.

You might try a product like this. And you might feel really warm. Mm-hmm. Or you might feel tingly. Yes. Uh, and you know that, that is awesome because that means that you have a really robust response to light. Oh, interesting. Uh, and then we're so and again, red light, little bit shorter wavelengths, little bit more for the surface level stuff.

Really great for that. And then as we get. Into the near infrared, deeper penetration, less scatter basically. And it's, so that's something very interesting to know. Hmm. But um, it is interesting. Yeah. Yeah. 'cause I tend to have the warm piece especially, and now I wonder if you can share if there's ever points of like overdoing, because sometimes I'll do a couple back to back.

Are there Sure. Things that we wanna be mindful of there? Yeah. Actually in general, just like any. Drug. Really? Drug or, or, or habit. Let's just, let's go habit. Let's go away from, that's beautiful. Yes. Yeah. Let's go. 'cause this, I like non-invasive things. Yeah. Uh, just like any skill habit, it's like when you start exercising, you don't jump on the treadmill and go for a seven mile run.

You start with one. There is such a thing as overdosing on light. Sure. And that there's not. Any known side effects of light therapy. Yeah. However, people subjectively do have pretty negative responses if they overdose in light, so just like that example I gave you with the clinic. Yes. They don't start them on 30 minutes a day.

They start them with 10. Okay. And then after a month you build it up and that's how you know that you're doing it safely and you don't need probably more than 10 to 20 minutes of light every single day. Mm-hmm. With this type of light. Yeah. Especially 'cause again, it's very. Focused and intense and targeted.

So it's not, this is not like equivalent to standing outside in the sunshine. That's a different type of light. And honestly, if you could still get your normal light, yes you should. And it's not gonna prevent you from being able to go outside either. Yeah. But being cautious of like intense stimulated light and how much you're doing is an important part of the process.

I appreciate you saying that. Yeah. And it just adds to, I think, the power of understanding and the reverence for. Light where we've just minimized it and had it be that we can be under lights like this, like 24 7 and no big deal, it's not gonna have an impact. All of it has an impact a hundred percent.

And there's behooves us to kinda learn a bit about this. So I'm grateful for experts like yourself to be able to share and understand more of how this could really make such a difference. I know I. Just said it. How shape, how easy was that? That was great. See, we did it while continuing our conversations.

I gotta start doing this on all podcasts. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely, that's a big one. And I'll say this is again, as someone who's worked in like biotech med tech for about 10 years, one reason I was so attracted to that field Yeah. Is that unlike pharmaceuticals, unlike Yes. More invasive.

Things that we do and that encompasses a lot of things in the biohacking space. Yeah. Even things like supplements and peptides and all of this. Yes. Working with the energies that are around us Yeah. Makes such a huge impact on our how we feel every day. Totally. Like our circadian rhythms we developed in tandem with our environment.

Yeah. So the fact that we fight against it. Of course it impacts our sleep. Yes. And so being able to use noninvasive things like this and have such a profound impact without having to resort to pharmaceuticals. Yeah, it's really nice. It's really nice. Exactly. And yeah, I'm glad you said that. And one of the things that I just think is really.

Important for people to get. 'cause sometimes it can go in the bucket of like nice to have for people. And yet when we see some of the, these results just time and time again with so much research. Yeah, I mean it really does start to move into the domain of, wow, this is something that we clearly, our biology was built around.

This light was a component. Now whether this just further in court, encouraging to get physically outside and get your sunlight and paired with. Things that we could supplement in our modern society when we are indoors all the time, I think people don't quite understand how much, even I sit next to a big window, it's a big deal, but it's, if you measure the light in that space is not doing the job.

And this is so targeted and specific and beyond that. So beautiful. Thank you so much for kind of moving through those things. And then one thing that we found on the podcast is people are really interested in. People like yourself who have thought deeply about these aspects of health and how they relate to sleep, how they're managing their own sleep.

Yeah. I think of course it's dynamic and things can shift and change, but curious on how you're thinking about your nightly sleep routine right now. Yeah, I, it's definitely been something that I've developed over my life. Yeah. And right now, I think there's a few things that I've seen make a big impact.

The first one. As I've already talked about, yes, is like incorporating this into my nightly routine, which has been really fun and great to see the impact. The other one is mouth taping. It has made probably the big, and I almost like the first time I read about it, I was like, eh, Uhhuh really gonna do that much.

Yes. And then I did it 'cause it's something that during the day I've generally. Spray through my nose. I don't really think about it, but even just like the way my mouth feels when I wake up af by having a mouth tape has made such a change to how I feel when I wake up. But I have noticed a difference in how, how well I sleep through the night.

Yes. How restful it feels. How much more restorative it feels mouth taping and it's again, something you go, just go to the store. I use surgical tape. I don't use one of those fancy like mouth tapes. Yeah. I just snap it on and like we're done. It's easy. It's. Five bucks for a roll that lasts me like three months.

I do the roll. So I know I do the, they have first I was doing the kind of plain roll, then I got, they have like almost a silicone type roll. Yeah. And I have the same way, 'cause I just don't like to have to unpack like these little plastic things each night. So just the ease of, Ooh. And then it's per perforated and you're just.

Ready to go. Yeah. Mouth tap is huge. I get so mad whenever I have a cold and I can't mouth tape. Makes me Yes, yes, exactly that. And then I will say I travel a fair amount for work. And I was gonna speak to that actually really quickly. Mm-hmm. With, yeah, please. That is one, because my actually travel a fair amount internationally for work.

Sure. And of course, just like the big change, the jet lag. Yes. This is not something I would say would be necessarily the right solution for everyone, but for me it's worked well. Is GABA instead of melatonin? Yes, I found to be extremely helpful. Helpful, yeah. To winding down, to bring in more restful sleep.

Again, melatonin works very well for falling asleep. Mm-hmm. But it really doesn't help you at all with staying asleep. Staying asleep. Yeah. GABA works much better for that. Because again, you're down regularly, the entire nervous system. Yes. That being said, I do know a couple of people who are very hypersensitive to gaba, so definitely yes, there can be that.

Yeah. Don't me, and be like, oh, it didn't work for me. It might not, but for me, I really like it. And then the third is, of course. The environment in my bedroom, I do sleep with my dog and I, there's plenty of studies that have shown that like people sleeping with their dog get better sleep, uh, because it's, you've got that, that perfect angel next to you that just knows how to fall asleep and then you get those sleep vibes and it's, yes, but more importantly is there's no TVs in my bedroom.

Yes. I don't. Except for the occasional, like last night, bring night laptop into the bedroom. Yeah. Keeping it dark, keeping the windows closed. No night lights, no, none of that. Like a dark room. A cold, dark room mm-hmm. Is totally so vital. Huge. Huge. Yeah. And then when you, it's, it's so tricky. So we have the cooling mattress toppers and the whole air purifiers and all the things.

And then when you do travel, depending on where you might land, you might not have all of those things. So it is so interesting the difference that environment can make. Yeah. Yeah. That's the nice thing is what we know about sleep is that you can sleep, you can bank it. Mm-hmm. So if when you are home, when you are in your environment Yep.

You get great sleep. Yes. When you do have the occasion to travel and you have a couple of crappy nights of sleep, like you're gonna be okay. You're gonna okay. It's gonna be fun. Resiliency is clear. Yeah. And it's so important. Yeah. We had a. The one of the sleep coaches for the Olympics on the podcast two times and sleep banking was a big topic that he would speak to with his athletes before the Olympics training for so much of your life for this like one day basically.

And so the thinking was from a psychological perspective then just almost preparing. It's likely you might not sleep the best, but it's okay. Yeah. And removing that pressure a hundred almost can paradoxically support a greater likelihood that you will sleep well. Where those sleep can definitely have those.

Uh, kind of mind games in there, but the pure results are, or the things that you can take away is to your point, if most of the time you've set yourself up for success and then if you're in situations where you have less control, you will be able to practice that resiliency aspect of things. Yeah, great.

Absolutely. Okay. I love that. And then, what does your morning sleep routine look like with the idea that how we. Start our day can impact. Yeah. So actually, and that's something that COVID actually changed that quite a bit. Like many of us, I went from being, having to go to an office every day. Yeah. Or to a lab every day.

Sure. Into, I work remotely now. And the big thing that I did was I was like, no more alarms. I never, ever set an alarm. Yes. And again, it's different if I'm traveling, if I have to be up really early for something. You set the alarm one time. Yeah. But the difference I made of just like natural week. And I found that when I didn't set an alarm.

Guess what happened? I wake up with the sun. Yeah, totally. That's how my body's going to, it tends to wake up around the same time, give or take a few minutes, but it always adjusts whether we're in the winter, I'm gonna wake up a little bit later. Mm-hmm. In the summer. I'm gonna wake up a little bit earlier.

Sure. And that made a huge difference too. It's just like allowing your body to tell you when it wants to wake up rather than being like forcing it. As we know with sleep cycles, that's a huge one. Gosh, I remember this was. Back when I was in college, one of the groups that I was working with was we were doing headbands that were about when it's the smart alarm.

Mm-hmm. It's saying if it can track what stage you are in your sleep cycle, they, the alarm might make you wake you up 10 minutes earlier than you thought you wanted to wake up. But it's actually in time in line with the sleep cycle so that you're not waking up groggy. Yes. So that's the importance to me of allowing my body to wake up naturally.

Totally. Uh, and then first thing I do, I get. My shoes on. I take my dog out for a walk, get the sunshine. And even if it's 10, 15 minutes, like you get outside and that's it. That is my morning routine. Get up, get outside. Ah, that's exactly what we work to have. So many people just bring in as their first anchor, the first thing they do.

And we do see that so many dog owners are often winning the day on some of these. Thanks. So That's amazing. It helps. It's, it's the constant reminder. Like it's Yeah. You gotta take 'em out. Yes. But it does make a huge difference. And that's why I say so when I do travel, taking the helmet along now, because if I'm at a conference and I know I'm literally not gonna see the light of day Yes.

The entire day. 'cause I'm in this big expo hall. Yes. At least I can supplement it a little bit with some near infrared light. Yeah. Oh, that's great. So good. I'm glad you mentioned all of those things that can make such a difference for anyone listening to just start bringing those things in right away.

Just especially that consistent wake up time around, like you said, plus or minus a little bit of time, and then pairing that with bright light exposure outside, not just, yeah, and I think what's really important about all of this is that what we're talking about in terms of sleep hygiene, none of this is like.

Complicated, expensive. Like this is literally just you making a hat. Yes, exactly right. It's good habits. Yes. It's don't sleep with lights on. It's don't. I said having no TV in the bedroom is huge. Huge. Yeah. Anything that's gonna tempt you to basically have light when you shouldn't. Yeah, exactly. Couldn't agree more.

And then more to that environment piece that you're mentioning, what might we see on your nightstand or in your environment? Yeah, I mean, I keep it pretty simple in my bedroom. Quickly. Yes. Great. Nightstand's. Just a glass of water and my book. Yeah, I know. Yes. Good. Yeah, I know. And also when you mentioned magnetism and what have you, we do a lot of people that are mindful of EMFs, so even having less.

Things just plugging in and charging and ugh, all that right next to your head. Absolutely. You're not using 'em, even if, I know it can be a controversial topic, but even if, even if there's a certain percentage that could be impactful, why bother? Yeah. You're, you're sleeping, you don't need them. And there again, since I don't wake up with an alarm.

There's no reason for me to have like my cell phone in my Exactly. Yes. Like when I go to bed, it can be anywhere in the house 'cause I'm not using it for an alarm. Yes, exactly. So it's one less thing for the tempting aspect of things. So good. Okay. And then the last question is, so far to date, what would you say has made either the biggest change to how you're thinking about kinda the management of your sleep?

Or said another way because aha. Moment in managing your sleep. Frankly, probably one of the things that had the biggest impact was actually reading, and now of course I'm blanking on the name of the author. Ah, it's the, the, the book on sleep. Oh, the Walker. Yeah. Yes. That book changed Why We Sleep. Why We Sleep.

Yeah. Completely. Not from necessarily that it changed my sleep habits, but it just, it was like. Again, I think it's talked about a lot. Sleep is one of those things. And even just the brain in general because we can't see it. Yes. There are times when we don't prioritize it where we're like, I'm busy, I can't do that.

I can't take care of that. I don't have enough time for eight hours of sleep. And if you read that book and you see the studies of what happens if you over time don't attend Yes. To your sleep. Yeah. And the consequences it has on you as you get older. Then it's, it's just like getting regular exercise, walking every day.

If that's all you do, makes such a huge difference to your long-term cardiovascular health. Huge. Yeah. And moving your body. And in the same way reading that book, I was like, okay, like it's not worth it. It's not worth it to. Say that you don't have time to do this. Of course you do. You have to do this.

'cause otherwise you're not gonna be around and you're not gonna have a healthy brain as you get older. I love that. Yeah. So that was definitely like absolute game changer for me. And the piece too, for someone like yourself in the medical arena of what he speaks to of just the seemingly antiquated, backwards way of managing.

Sleep during when you're achieving and going through this whole process of learning about health and yet ironically just killing your circadian health and sleep as a result. And for so many doctors in the medical fields. And that is, there is an irony there. I always think, I actually think about it a lot about like when people go to the hospital and they're there for surgery and they have to be there overnight or if they're, for whatever reason.

Yes. And they have to be there for overnight. Like no one is getting a good night's sleep in the hospital. They're getting woken up doing these laps, et cetera. It's. If there's one thing we could do, it's just leave people alone. Yes. To rest. Exactly. Frustrat and even the doctors, right? Like they, they get on these schedules where there are these crazy schedules and it's like this is the person who's supposed to be telling you how to live a healthy life, and we're not even giving them the ability to do it themselves.

Yes, with these schedules. Oh my God, the worst. Do you ever see the movie The Nick or the show? The Nick is So it's part of the Knickerbocker? No, I, it's really cool. It's back. I think it was supposed to be like 1901 or so, but it was looking at the, in New York City, the Knickerbocker for the. Kind of original name for the hospitals in, in New York.

I like it was like Lower East Side. But anyway, I was looking, I think Cly Bowen is one of the main actors and just looking at the pervasive use of some of these drugs that now today we know some of the perils, but cocaine, heroin, and. Seeing, so how some of those things were laced in, or at least the stories are laced in with the origins of how we think about structuring or training in for our poor doctors.

Right? Oh my God, no, I haven't heard that particular story. Yes, but there is one about, it was one of the physicians of at, so residencies, right? Residencies, which, they're slowly changing, but they're slowly changing. Yeah. That that element where residents were always like, oh, you have to have these hours, and they would be, they would tell you, oh, it's.

Because you might have a procedure where you can't go to sleep, so you need to train your body for it. When you look back, as you said back at the history, that's not actually why it happened at all. It was that Larry, there was one physician at Hopkins who was taking a little bit of cocaine and was staying up all the time, and he was like, you're my resident, so you need to keep up.

Yeah, exactly. It's like that's not the reason why we should have this meet the schedule like that doesn't make sense. I know, and of course, as we've said earlier with like sleep debt, like. Yes, there's an element of sometimes you have to stay up and sometimes there life happens. Certainly people who are are in the military know that well, if you're in country there's just going to be times, but sleep unlike.

Unlike maybe an exercise activity training to get less sleep Doesn't work. Yes. Like it never works to train your body to get less sleep. Yeah. No. You need to bank that sleep. You need that rest, and then when you can't get it right, your body can handle it. Exactly right. Oh, so good. So to bring that home, any kind of closing thoughts around this topic of light therapy and sleep?

Anything for us to have in our, in the back of our heads as we're thinking about this? Yeah, I think that we've touched on this a couple of times, but for me it's just think about the environment you surround yourself with every day and where you can make little changes to interact in a more. Healthy and positive way with light.

Yes. As I said, one reason we both live, obviously here in Austin, Texas. Yeah. But as you said, it's funny. I thought about it and I was like, yeah, I spend probably half of my day outside. I work from my porch all day. Same. And a lot of people who work from home, yes. We like having our office space and we like having this setup, but take 30 minutes and go take your laptop outside.

Exactly. Yes. It's not gonna massively impact your day. Certainly not in a negative way. Yes. And starting to look at your environment and look at the habits that you've built around. How much time you're actually spending in natural light is a pretty easy thing to do and can make a really big impact on just like regulating your own nervous system and cycles.

Couldn't agree more said. Okay. And then so for people that now they've seen this helmet, they heard all this. Stuff about it. And now they're saying, okay, I wanna check out a little bit more about this. What are the steps that they can take to do that? I believe also we have a code too, that sleep is a skill for additional savings.

Yeah. So it's very simple. We, it's a cart purchase off of neuro online. Yeah. And as you said, you've got. Promo code that everyone should absolutely use. It. Is HSA eligible also? Yeah, so you can get a little savings there. Also, just for a quick shout out for our product in general, we were just nominated to be as one of the best non-invasive new med devices, so the air by med tech world, so we're pretty excited about that.

You'll notice on our website, we actually have two models of the helmet. There's the light device, and then there's. The No Radiant, generally speaking, the N Radiant is more for clinicians so that someone, it can actually target different regions of the brain and it doesn't function with an app. So also if somebody is like, they really don't wanna interact with an app, they don't wanna deal with that.

The no radiant is that mm-hmm. Possibly. Mm-hmm. Might be the better option. The light we have designed specifically for end users, so it's very user friendly, it's good for the home, it operates off the app. So just so that your users know when they come onto the website and there's two different options.

Which one should they get? That is the why. Yes. Okay. So well said. And I so appreciate you taking the time to share so much information. And I also realize we only just scratched the surface and your team is really looking to continue to enrich the research, at least what I had. Seen when I've gone into the website is that they're often populating and adding new research there for all the time.

Great newsletter too. Yeah, we've had a great newsletter. The other thing that we offer, which 'cause we really do think that it's important and it's our responsibility to help with the education in this space. Yeah. Once a month we do a discussion round. So we have different pres presenters who come on.

They might be a physician, they might be a light therapy specialist. They might be in the neurofeedback space, and they come on and they talk about different aspects of this. So if you're interested in learning more about light, join one of our discussion rounds. You'll get some cool information that's really fun.

We're also working on, we have a version of this already on our website, which is our masterclass, so it's okay. Again, we have designed this for, if you wanna learn about light therapy in general, it's not about our product, it's just about light therapy. The basics. Understand the physics behind it, understand the why.

You can take that. We're actually working on updating it right now, so we'll have great version. One for clinicians, one for end users. So just to like. You educate yourself on why you're using these products. Okay. Amazing. Great. Thank you again for the time. Thank you so much for having me. This was so fun.

Yeah. And we might have to do some sort of follow up down the road with all this research coming out. So it's a very exciting field and thanks for being at the. Forefront. Yeah. You've been listening to The Sleep Is a Skill podcast, the top podcast for people who wanna take their sleep skills to the next level.

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