The challenge

A lot of people struggle with falling asleep easily on a daily basis. Most of the times it is not because our bodies can not fall asleep but it is our mental state that affects our ability to fall asleep. Research has shown that it is best to get out of bed after 20 minutes of trying to fall asleep, only to return when you feel tired. The next problem however is that timing 20 minutes on an alarm clock is really bad for your ease of mind, and increases the feeling of racing against the clock to fall asleep.

The solution

I have designed 'Firefly' – Firefly can be set to a certain time between 10 and 30 minutes. After this timeframe the small led inside will slowly change color. If this user is still awake she can see this and decide whether to stay in bed to keep trying to fall asleep or get out of bed, to try again later. This way people will spend less time lying awake in bed, which has shown to generate a bad relationship with the bed, resulting in lying awake more often. Firefly brakes this circle and trains people to fall asleep more easily and reflect beforehand on whether they feel confident or not confident about falling asleep.

This project is being coached by