You asked for the crazy options — so here they are, honestly sorted into 'worth it,' 'fun but unproven,' and 'skip.' The whole optimizer scene has one meta-risk worth naming first: optimising sleep so hard that you lie awake anxious about your sleep score.
The far-out options with genuine evidence: active bed cooling (Eight Sleep, ChiliPad) for hot sleepers; weighted blankets (a real trial backs them for anxiety-linked insomnia); better bedroom air / ventilation (lowering overnight CO₂ measurably improved sleep — cheap and badly underrated); and the maximalist routines (Bryan Johnson's 'Blueprint,' Andrew Huberman's toolkit) work because they do the boring fundamentals rigorously. Evidence ●●●○○
The most scientifically grounded gadget frontier is EEG headbands that time stimulation to your brainwaves — Elemind (2024) sped sleep onset by ~29% in its trial by nudging brain rhythms with sound. Real mechanism, real (but small, company-funded, early) data: interesting for early adopters, not yet proven enough to bank on. Cranial electrical stimulation (CES) and DIY brain stimulation are weaker still and best left to research. Evidence ●●○○○
Fun but unproven: red-light-as-therapy, rocking beds (real in the lab, barely available as a product), and elaborate supplement stacks. Outright skip (no plausible mechanism or evidence): grounding/earthing sheets, PEMF mats, and magnets — that's the snake-oil end. And mouth taping stays a skip unless a clinician has cleared you for apnea. Evidence ○○○○○ for the snake-oil tier
The optimizer's trap: orthosomnia
The biggest risk of the whole optimizer scene is orthosomnia — chasing a perfect sleep score until the chasing itself keeps you up. The unglamorous fundamentals beat every gadget here; use the toys on top of them, never instead of them.
The Sleep Guide