So, I'm interested.

There is a clear link between Benadryl and dementia. Many say that you shouldn't take it as a result.

I've posited that people with 'broken sleep' due to overactive thoughts or anxiety may raise the risk of dementia and benadryl is caught in the crossfire of suffering folks.

Do you have any opinion?

I have never heard of the link to Benadryl, unless they are taking benadryl to "help" with sleep.

In your deepest sleep, there are bursts of brain activity called Slow Wave Oscillations. These have a strong impact on memory consolidation, as well as the clearing of amyloid (beta-amyloid) plaques (think of them like cholesterol in your veins, but amyloids are in your brain).

If you don't get enough deep sleep, and therefore reduce the SWOs, you get a buildup of amyloid plaques.

As we age, we get less deep sleep, less SWOs, you can see where this is going.

It isn't "overactive thoughts" specifically, but again, if you're not getting enough deep sleep due to anxiety I suspect you'd see the same result - but I haven't seen research on that specifically.

However, there is also the issue of us generally having high cortisol levels due to constant fight or flight. There is some research that shows that these high cortisol levels keep our brains in lighter levels of sleep, and therefore reduce deep sleep, making us feel more tired, and damaging our brains. This is connected to the "tired and wired" phenomenon.

It's really a fascinating area.

Thanks for replying. Here is one among many, and I'm a bit surprised you hadn't come across it yet - https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-d...

Are you saying the drug prevents slow wave oscillations?

The main reason for my whole position is that my wife's village believes people who have an 'over-active' brain get dementia, and can all name examples. They have nothing like benadryl there.

Wow, that is fascinating. The reason I likely haven't come across it is that my interest/research with regards to dementia is sleep specific. I'll definitely be keeping my eyes open for more acetycoline in the further research I come across. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

I see where you're coming from re: "over-active" brain, and so I'd question if they're equating "over-active" with "reduced sleep", and if there is a commonality there.

I'm not a neurologist, I come from a software engineering background. I've always had an interest in neurology, and got into the sleep-tech field because I've always been an insomniac and started learning more about sleep.

Yeah I listened to a podcast recently about sleep, and how 'sleep' medications such as Ambien are only a partial method of inducing sleep, more like inducing unconsciousness and thus it changes your sleep architecture and prevents you from entering the proper deep sleep cycles. Wouldn't be surprised that benedryll has a similar problem if you use it to help you sleep and not just as an anti-histamine that you stay awake throughout.

https://www.peak-human.com/post/dr-kirk-parsley-md-is-sleep-...

The correlation between amyloid plaques and Alzheimer's has long been known, but how well established is the causation? All of my information is dated, but last I read, causation still hadn't been conclusively established.

Do you have any books to recommended to someone that wants to focus on improving their sleep?

If I did, we wouldn't be going this challenging and hi-tech route :)

You can try all the sleep hygiene stuff you want, but if you're not improving the neurological function of your brain while you sleep, you're not improving the effectiveness of sleep, and since your natural ability to sleep degrades as you age...

The Oxford University Neurology of Sleep textbook is surprisingly approachable. Most people start with Dr Matthew Walkers, Why We Sleep. There are websites dedicated to tearing apart his science, but that goes a bit far. The guy does an excellent job of bringing the importance of sleep to light, and explaining the basics. He also owns up to the "mistakes" or things that have been learned since the book was published.

Had a conversation with a psychiatrist about this recently. The correlation is not between Benadryl exactly, but a class of drugs called anticholinergics of which Benadryl is one. Specifically, there is only a causal link between specific types of anticholinergic drugs (antidepressants, antipsychotics, antiparkinson, bladder antimuscarinic drugs) and not all anticholinergics - Benadryl doesn't fall into any of the categories I just mentioned. Specifically, the largest study (in terms of sample size) showed that there only a slight increase in your odds of getting dementia (6% higher odds) for people older than 55 after taking < 1095 total daily standard doses for over three years (for Benadryl, that's 25-50 mg daily)[1]. That's already a reasonably high dose.

This and other studies have not found correlations between antihistamine anticholinergics and dementia.

[1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

"Anti-aging and longevity are two different things."

Depends on what you precisely mean by longevity. The word used to mean "living long naturally", but the meaning has been shifting towards lifespan and healthspan extension in the last decade or so. So if someone now says that they are interested in science of longevity, they probably mean "reaching 110 years of age in good health".

For that, you need anti-aging tech definitely. Our natural lifespan is shorter and breeding humans for natural longevity [0], while theoretically possible, would take several thousand years.

[0] Theoretically, you could take a big group of humans who are still fertile at 40, let them reproduce and, in the next generation, lift the limit slightly, say, to 40,5. After tens of generations, you will have a group selected for longevity, because late fertility tends to align with longevity. But given how long our generations are, that would take a long, long time.

Can you elaborate on ‘sleeptech’? Are you doing more than simply monitoring sleep quality?

No, sleep monitoring isn't helpful for most people, what do you do with the data?

We're focused on improving the neurological functioning of your brain during sleep. We talk a bit about it on our (very fluffy) website https://soundmind.co - and link to the research on the "how it works" page.

We put up the website before we really understood our target market, and even the long-term impact, so we'll be updating it as we get closer to launching. We're working on improving comfort so we can properly get into trials.

I’ve never dreamed (to the best of my knowledge, but I doubt it, I’m 50 years old and I think by now I’d have some inkling if I dreamed at night). Do you have any data on longevity of non-dreamers?

Everyone dreams, you just don't remember your dreams. Though we're interested in REM, it isn't our focus atm...and yes, you dream in non-REM sleep, but those sorts of dreams are different.

REM (dream sleep) is thought to be connected to resolving emotional stresses. I haven't seen any research on the reduction of REM sleep and the impact. Sorry.

Is there actual proof that everyone dreams?

My understanding is that neurologists are taking this from EEG readings and that even people who say they "don't dream" show the same telltale markers of dream as people who do dream.

> Your sleep is unique to you, which is why SoundMind monitors your sleep in real-time and with subtle tones guides your sleep cycles for your ideal recovery

how would this work if you have a partner?

We're only measuring your brain waves, not your partners :) we play sound through bone-conduction, so nothing in your ears, nothing covering your ears, only you can hear it (there is some sound leakage, but minimal).

Completely forgot about bone conduction (I was thinking bed side speakers disturbing your partner, or conventional headphones disturbing you), but still you need it strapped on - a slight discomfort. Also, since you mention measuring, there is another component strapped on (unless it is a fabric woven sensor). An image search on EEG produces cumbersome looking devices.

yeah, we've got soft fabric sensors and the bone conduction speakers are amazingly small. We're still working on comfort with our prototypes - but we're getting pretty good.

Our industrial design firm has nocked it out of the park with design, and we think there stuff will have a huge impact on comfort. Still needs to be tried.

Sounds really interesting, best of luck!

You mentioned trials, are you trying to get FDA approved?

We're just looking at FDA atm. We don't have to get approval, but we're looking at registering as a medical device (Class 1, maybe Class 2).

Do you have any experience with that process?

We're implementing existing research, with a bit of our own spin on it. My co-founder and I both come from CSIRO (Australia's Science and Technology Org), so our trial is a combination of measuring that we've implemented the science correctly, it's having the impact we want/expect, and we can prove it.

This isn't a medical trial, but we are following regular research protocols.