Guille Faingold

I Tried Wearing A Sleep Tech Bracelet Because Insomnia Is Making Me Ugly

I can't sleep.

I've tried solving the mystery of my newly acquired insomnia to no avail. My anxiety is all-consuming, but that's nothing new. Depression typically makes me sleep more, so that isn't it.

One of my chemistry professors always has that gross slimy white stuff in the corners of his mouth, and he kind of foams while speaking. That's pretty traumatizing, but not enough to keep me awake until 3 am.

Maybe it's the guy I'm currently into? Catching feelings has always had a way of transforming my normally pragmatic brain function into pure restlessness.

I don't know, but the severe lack of sleep is making me hideous. I'm developing eye bags, dull jaundiced skin and an unattractive, sluggish demeanor.

I will sacrifice my soul to a sea witch before I cede my looks to sleepless nights, so this needs to end.

My concern isn't even how many hours of sleep I clock. Five will do. Six is a luxury. It doesn't matter how passionately people preach the value of snoozing for eight hours. Unless I drop out of school or stop working, eight hours isn't happening.

The only solution is to focus on the quality of my sleep, rather than its duration. I just need the five or six hours I do get to be as deep as possible. You know, that wake-up-with-drool-on-your-pillow kind of sleep.

I've already mentioned my recent health kick and effort to flesh out my lifestyle with wellness-promoting additives. My nocturnal needs are no exception.

So, since powder magnesium puts me into a borderline coma and Ambien will make me sleep walk through Central Park at night and get murdered, I've resorted to trying the best device money can buy: a $425 Philip Stein sleep bracelet. Why sacrifice watching TEDTalks before bed when I could just get a thing that makes everything better?

Philip Stein/Courtney Brunson

Philip Stein develops watches and sleep bracelets with metal plates that act as wearable antennas for natural electromagnetic frequencies. A very persuasive (and fear-inducing) product explanation on its website that almost scares me into walking around with a tinfoil hat states:

In our modern world, we are surrounded by many man-made electromagnetic frequencies generated by electrical power lines and appliances, WiFi transmissions and mobile phones. These artificial frequencies compete with and overpower the natural ones, and can put us out of tune with our planet.

I interpreted that as, “The world is full of bad vibes and you need more good vibes.”

My wrists are abnormally small (but so cute!), so I've been using the Slim Sleep Bracelet with a black micro-fiber strap and black-plated case. The band is soft and the metal plate is lightweight, so I don't feel the bracelet when I'm sleeping. This is coming from someone who finds most jewelry intolerable.

A couple things happen when you start sleeping with this bracelet. First, you have some wild-ass dreams.

Last night I dreamed a screenplay I had written (I don't even write screenplays) found its way into the hands of Gabrielle Union, who consequently DM-ed me on Instagram saying it was fire and we should be friends. We went to Applebee's and ate appetizers -- it was lit as hell.

I fall asleep HARD with this bracelet. Borderline blackout. I don't think I rolled over or woke up in the middle of the night once. You know that feeling of full-body heaviness after spending hours in the sun? It's like that, plus the mental chill obtained at the end of corpse pose after yoga.

When I wake up in the morning after sleeping with the Phillip Stein sleep bracelet, I feel wide-awake. For real, my eyelids fly open immediately at the sound of my alarm and I don't even consider tapping the snooze button.

Instead of the drugged-up exhaustion where I open my eyes feeling sluggish and hungover, I wake up bright and alert.

I nap less, which is a miracle, and find myself procrastinating less since I started sleeping with the bracelet. Clear-minded energy motivates me to get sh*t done productively and efficiently. Funny how many good ideas you can come up with when you aren't stumbling around like a zombie.

If my word means anything to you, I think the Philip Stein sleep bracelet works. It's certainly one of my favorite forms of wearable tech and reassures me in my previously mentioned electromagnetic wave phobia. A tinfoil hat wouldn't work out with my haircut anyway, so a bracelet will have to do for now.