About Dodow
If you have ever gone a long time without sleep, then you realize how important sleep is for the body and mind. Roughly 60 million Americans suffer from insomnia every year which can cause chronic fatigue, cognitive confusion, loss of coordination, and general impairment. Unfortunately, scientists do not really know much about the causes of insomnia and there are disagreements on how to best treat it.
The Dodow Sleep Aid is an interesting device that is meant to help regulate your sleep and make sure your body can enter the deep sleep and REM cycles it needs to recharge you. The small cheese-wheel-shaped metronome sits on your bedside table and emits an LED ring of light that expands and contracts so you can time your breathing and enter a restful state of sleep.
The Dodow initially might sound like some pseudoscience kind of device, but hear us out. There is some good evidence that metronomes and rhythms can help sleep and memory consolidation. Today we are going to cover the Dadow sleep aid and talk about its pros, cons, where to buy and cost, and whether it is all it’s cracked up to be.
What Is Dodow Sleep Aid?
The Dodow (which we believe is pronounced “doo-DAU”) is a small wheel-shaped device that projects a changing ring of LED light on your ceiling. The point is to synchronize your breathing with the motion of the light. Doing so trains your brain to enter a state of rhythmic sleep. The purpose of the Dodow is to rebalance your autonomic nervous system via a kind of hypnotic effect from the changing light ring.
The light metronome has the double effect of focusing your attention so you are not kept awake by racing thoughts induced by anxiety. The Dodow will not help you stay asleep, but it can make it easier to actually fall asleep and enter a rhythmic sleep cycle. The Dodow is built around the principles of meditation, yoga, and cognitive behavioral therapy.
Dodow is not a miracle product or a cure for insomnia, but a way to manage poor sleep. The Dodow kit comes with a device that has a touchscreen so you can calibrate rhythm times and instructions for how to use the device. The entire device weighs 7 ounces and runs on 3 AAA batteries. One set of batteries will last you for at least 100 nights of use.
Dodow Advantages
- Small and convenient
- Long battery life
- Drug-free sleep aid
- Affordable
- Helps you fall asleep faster
- Backed by some interesting science and research
Disadvantages
- Won’t help you stay asleep
- Light can be too bright for some
Who Makes Dodow?
The Dodow Sleep Aid is made by Dodow, a company headed by a quartet of self-described insomniacs who are dedicated to combating the perils of poor sleep. All 4 of the team members are practiced in meditation and proclaim the benefits that rhythmic breathing can have for promoting better sleep. They created the Dodow Sleep Aid with the goal to find an effective drug-free way to promote good sleep.
80% of the company’s products are manufactured in France, where the company is partnered with Unilux, the French leader in manufacturing desk lamps.
Does Dodow Work?
The Dodow is designed around activating the autonomic nervous system. A sizable body of evidence suggests that sleep disorders are partially related to activation of the sympathetic nervous system, the so-called “flight” response in “fight or flight.” The leading hypothesis is that insomnia is caused by hyperarousal which is not necessarily related to circadian irregularities.
In other words, insomnia occurs because the body’s alert response is too sensitive, like a car alarm that goes off at the slightest disturbance. The main mechanism of the Dodow is to activate the parasympathetic nervous system (a “rest” state) by reorienting attention away from external stimuli. By focusing on slow rhythmic breathing, insomniacs can train their parasympathetic nervous system to react more readily and dampen the response of the sympathetic nervous system.
The entire point of the Dodow is to give insomniacs a metronome so they can time their breathing and activate the parasympathetic nervous system. By timing your breathing, the Dodow helps activate a “baroreflex” response which lowers blood pressure and decreases heart rate.
To be completely honest, the functioning of the Dodow is pretty simple to understand. Anyone who listens to music while studying knows that certain rhythms can affect brain function, so it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest that the rhythm of light can have a similar effect. The key feature is in how the Dodow makes you regulate your breathing by giving a physical stimulus to focus your attention on.
Is Dodow Safe?
Best of all, since the Dodow is 100% drug-free, there are 0 side effects. It is a completely non-invasive method that can be used by anyone.
Is Dodow A Scam?
We say no, Dodow seems to be legit. Dodow incorporates solid science in backing up its design, using the principles of 3 major relaxation techniques – yoga, meditation, and CBT. These techniques have all been shown to help with relaxation and sleep.
In addition, Dodow is a 100% drug free sleep aid. Being drug free means you don’t have to worry or stress over side effects. All of the information we’ve gathered, plus positive customer reviews, lead us to believe Dodow seems legit and is not a scam.
Where To Buy Dodow
You can currently buy the Dodow directly from the company’s website or through a third-party online retailers like Amazon.
It is not currently available at any physical retail stores. The Dodow is available for â¬49 (~59 USD).
Dodow Sleep Aid: Worth It Or Not?
Our answer is an emphatic yes. Unlike a lot of other sleep aids out there, the Dodow has some pretty solid science backing its design and is 100% drug free, so there is absolutely 0 risk to trying it. Moreover, the Dodow combines the principles of 3 major branches of relaxation techniques (yoga, meditation, CBT) all of which have been independently shown to help promote better sleep. The Dodow has very good customer reviews and it has the backing of some professional sleep doctors and physiologists.