By Daniel Cooper, Source: Engadget

If you can’t get to sleep at night, then you’ve probably been told to avoid cheese, say no to caffeine after lunchtime and drink a cup of warm milk before bed. That was good advice, or at least it was, until the advert of the Sleep Shepherd, which is a beanie that promises to gently send you to sleep and wake you up at the right time. Equipped with a variety of sensors, the headgear monitors your brain activity and sends a soothing pulse to your noggin to convince you that it’s time to stop thinking about what Dave at the office said to you that morning.

According to its creator, Dr. Michael Larson, there’s a part of our brain called the Medial Superior Olive, which we use to pinpoint the location of sounds. For instance, if someone speaks by our left ear, the sound reaches the left hemisphere of the MSO first, and we use the delay between that and when it reaches the right hemisphere to understand the location. The Sleep Shepherd takes advantage of this by sending a series of left-right pulses that trick your MSO into thinking that you’re rocking back and forth on a hammock. This, apparently, causes your brain into lowering the frequency of your brainwaves, and will eventually send you to sleep.

Read more at: Engadget