Präsentation
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            PSiO technology designed for Good Sleep
            The PSiO technology can regulate sleep disorders at two levels. It can  first help fall asleep, and it can also prevent awakening at night. 
            Falling asleep
            Sleep may be affected because of the famous “brain chatter”, these  thoughts that come back and seemingly never stop. The cortex is composed of  several layers of neurons that communicate with each other and that are  responsible for all analytic and comparative thoughts. In this part of the  brain, a special area is responsible for the faculty of attention. It is at  this level that the PSiO technology can intervene by acting as a powerful  attention “distractor”. While it is clear that the absence of light promotes  sleep, darkness unfortunately does not stop chronic over thinking. On the  contrary, the thousand thoughts generally arise in the dark and quiet of the  night, often generated by stress or anxiety. The originality of the approach  proposed by the PSiO device is to paradoxically use light to distract one’s  attention! 
              
              The chart shows the  concentration of salivary melatonin on the control group (in white), on the  group exposed to red light (in red) and on the two groups exposed to continuous  and pulsed blue light respectively (in blue). It is clear that the red group  does not have a significant impact (statistically speaking) on melatonin  inhibition while blue light eradicates melatonin secretion. Stéphane Krsmanovic and Nicolas D’Offay - PSiO Technologies Laboratories - 2014 
             Light as an Attention ‘Distractor’
            But not just any kind of light ! A study was conducted in 2014 on 100  students (1). The study showed that red light, at a 625 nm wavelength,  has no significative  influence on the retina receptors involved in the 'biological clock’  activity. As evidence, melatonin secretion is in no way altered by a light emission of  this kind. It is thus thanks to red light diffused homogeneously in opalescent  glasses that the PSiO operates. 
              
              This view of the  brain illustrates the alpha waves associated to relaxation (in red color). On  the top row, before the use of PSiO, Alpha waves are located at the back of the  brain. After 10 minutes exposed to PSiO pulsed lights, Alpha waves spread to all  the areas of the encephalon (lower row). This proves the influence of the PSiO  technology in inducing a drop of the  attention. Stéphane Krsmanovic - 1995 
            How does light distract the attention?
            Variable frequency light stimulations  between 5 to 12 cycles / second have  been found to have no equal in distracting one’s attention. These stimulations   have the particular feature of producing an immediate hypnagogic effect. Shapes  and kaleidoscopic colors are spontaneously generated by the visual areas of the  cortex that cannot manage to treat this flow of stimuli without meaning. The attention thus  moves from inner thoughts to the external distracting light stimuli emitted by  PSiO. The  level of attention eventually starts to drop  gradually to ultimately  reach a state of total rest. At this moment, eyes drift into orbits, visual  scenes become uniform in orange tones that resemble the glow of flames from a  wood fire which fades out slowly. 
              If the person is tired, (s)he will fall asleep naturally. At the cortical  level, the result is similar to a ‘zero’ level of attention, similar to the  state reached through meditation, except in this case it is achieved  effortlessly. 
            
            In order to ensure the person reaches this state of total relaxation at the border of sleep, a MP3 player has been placed in the PSiO device. Thus, the device broadcasts audio messages simultaneously with the action of red light that will complement the overall action to relax the person. Soft music starts in combination with a pulsed light session followed by the broadcast of two voices alternately succeeding each other. A man and a woman talk and offer the person simple relaxation exercises.  They first raise awareness on the different segments of the body, followed by muscle contraction & release, long expirations, etc. At certain specific points in the recording, two stories are told simultaneously in the right and left ear. This is a method which prevents the person’s critical and analytical faculties from concentrating on the suggestions and completes the action of pulsed light to generate an even deeper “letting go” of the attention.  This method of indirect suggestion was invented by the famous Dr. Erickson in the 1970s. As a general rule, the person’s conscious "gives up" and stops paying attention to the two stories. The attention moves then to total rest and the mind which is still awake, finds itself for a time on the edge of sleep. It is a border state where one "hears" but does not "listen" anymore. At the end of the recording, the auditory level automatically decreases and shifts to whispered suggestions.  Once the person has reached the state where his or her attention is "switched off", soothing messages are conveyed in the form of stories, fairy tales, legends, texts coming from other types of therapy and stories inspired from everyday life. It is usually at this time that the mind switches to a restful sleep. The ingredients of dreams are often borrowed to the last hours before falling asleep, and we empirically notice that people experience serene nights and pleasant dreams. A feeling of subjective rest in the morning is also regularly reported. 
            Dr. Patrick Lemoine – The PSiO in Sleep Labs
            
              
                  
                  Dr.  Lachman, Sainte-Elisabeth  Clinic,  Brussels | 
                 Dr. Lemoine, Lyon | 
               
             
            
            
              
                  
                  "Dormir sans médicaments... 
                    ou presque" 
                    Dr. Lemoine  | 
                This system has been used with great success in sleep laboratories for  over twenty years in Belgium and particularly in Brugman Clinic (Dr. Hoffman) and Saint Elisabeth  Clinic (Dr.  Lachman). Dr. Patrick Lemoine (sleep specialist, PhD in  Neuroscience, Research Director at the Claude Bernard University in Lyon,  France and professor at the Beijing Medical University in China) personally  uses the PSiO for jetlag regulation during his many travels. According to him,  "it is hard NOT to fall asleep" with the PSiO. So he naturally  introduced it as part of his medical consultations  and started  prescribing the PSiO with his most severe insomniac patients with often surprising  results. He said : "The system has changed the way I treat my most severely  affected patients " (5).  | 
               
             
            
              
            Waking up at night
            Among the many causes of insomnia, one of them can also be positively  regulated by the PSiO technology: awakenings at night due to high inner stress  pursuing people even in their sleep. Indeed, after several hours of sleep and  some already acquired rest, the person wakes up at night and cannot go back to  sleep because of the high level of accumulated inner tension. Repeated use (it  takes 3 weeks minimum) of the PSiO relaxation sessions can, in the long term,  play an effective role in ending these sleepless night. How ? It is simply a  matter of creating a conditioning to relaxation by using the PSiO every night. There is probably a  deep relation between the subconscious and the emotional brain. It articulates  the relationship with the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system  responsible for the regulation of all automatic functions, including sleep.  Therefore, with the regular use of PSiO, we empirically found that night  awakenings decrease or disappear if the cause of these awakenings are due to  anxiety or to significant stress. 
            In contrast to drugs, this method has  proven to have no side effects. PSiO is also certified by the French National Measurement Laboratory (LNE) to be completely safe for the  eyes. It is  an effective tool that combines many techniques and technologies which, put  together, generate a synergy. The PSiO therefore positions itself as a  complement to medication. In Belgium, the Ministry of Health has classified the  Audio recordings contained in the PSiO as an alternative to the overconsumption of  sleeping pills and antidepressants and integrated them in the general  practitioner's manual. 
            
            Awakening
             Awakening is somewhat correlated to sleep. 
              In regards to awakening, the PSiO technology proposes a different kind  of light: blue light set at a 470 nm wavelength. 
              The company PHILIPS which is especially interested in the development of  light therapy lamps and several authors  of various scientific studies on  the subject (1), (2) & (3), confirmed the influence of this frequency range  on photosensitive receptors different than of those dedicated to vision, but  also located in the retina. These receptors linked to the biological clock are  specifically responsible for the regulation of circadian rhythms and pupillary  responses. These cells are in fact particularly sensitive to light and in  particular to blue light (470 nm). By using the morning programs configured in  continuous blue light, the PSiO user will wake up gently with the appropriate  light. This radically blocks melatonin secretion and stimulates other hormones  needed for daily activity. The various audio programs proposed complementarily  are meditation sessions or visualizations sessions, also guided by voice. These  are programs full of light and colors to start the day feeling great! 
              
            Power Naps
            PSiO has completed the range of applications by creating an original  concept: the Power Naps in music & light. Specially designed for  environments impoverished in natural daylight or for northern countries  drastically lacking light part of the year, Power Naps are short pulsating light  sessions combined with music therapy. Different types of music are available  (new age, Latin jazz, lounge, rock, nature sounds, etc.) to offer users the  choice. In addition to being efficient, the PSiO is cool and fun to use. 
            NASA has bought the PSiO at the Consumer  Electronics Show in 2014. Currently, a validation plan is discussed with sleep  expert, Steven Lockley, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical  School, Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders. Another study had to be  planned this year with a specialist in pulsed light and sleep researcher at  Stanford University, Jamie M. Zeitzer, PhD, of the Center for Sleep Sciences  and Medicine (4). The PSiO firm is relocating to California this year to  conduct new research and development. The PSiO catalog is available on this  link :  
              http://www.psio.com/pdf/Psio-magazine-n0-EN.pdf
  
  References
  
- Study of the efficacy of PSiO glasses on inhibition of  melatonin - Stéphane Krsmanovic et Nicolas D’Offay - PSiO Technologies Laboratories - 2014
 
- Phototransduction in ganglion-cell photoreceptors- Dr. David Berson at Brown University - European Journal of Physiology© Springer-Verlag 200710.1007/s00424-007-0242-2.
 
- Blue Light improve cognitive performance - Dr. Lehrl & collegues - Journal of neural transmission. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany. Published online : January 25, 2007.
 
- Response of the human circadian system to millisecond flashes of light.
 
- « Sleeping without drugs… or almost » - Dr. Patrick Lemoine  - Robert Laffont Edition - 2015.
 
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