Among the reasons we all sleep so terribly is, of course, gadgets. We’re all so hooked on our smartphones that they actually come to bed with us and lie on our bedside tables, waiting for us to get up again.
Have a guess what the solution we’re being offered is?
Yup – more gadgets. I feel rather like some crooked doctor is prescribing me ever more pills to combat the side effects of the ones I’m already taking.
This year has seen various sleep wristbands hit the market – but big companies want to go even further, with Samsung showing off a faintly sinister device that can switch off the TV when you fall asleep on the sofa.
In a final, Big Brother-ish touch, it can even monitor your fridge visits and advise you not to eat cheese after midnight.
Does all this technology really help? This week, I have slept under the pastel-coloured gaze of the Rolls-Royce of sleeping gadgets – the Withings Aura, a gizmo that combines a New Age lamp with a sensor that sits beneath your mattress, listening to your heartbeat and monitoring your movements at night.
You can even get his-and-hers sensors so you can finally settle the age-old question of which of you had the worse night’s sleep.
You can opt to be soothed to sleep with a gently dimming lamp and gentle wave noises – and it’s all controlled via an app that, come the morning, shows you graphs of how you slept.
It’s all very neat: the Aura has a suitably dim LED clock on the front, and it’s controlled by waving and patting its top or side.
You also don’t have to remember to wear a wristband as you go to bed, as all the “sleep sensing” is done by the sensor under the mattress.
But I’m not convinced it’s quite as accurate as the sensors you wear on your wrist, as it kept claiming I’d been sound asleep during periods where I was clearly awake.
Given how pricey those “natural light” lamps can be on their own, the Aura’s not too expensive.
I tend to sniff at hippie-ish ideas such as natural light, pastel colours and soothing wave noises, but after a week of the Aura I did notice that I was sleeping longer.
Perhaps I’ll invest in some wind chimes next… – Daily Mail