I’ll be honest: I’ve never been a good sleeper. For most of my life I was a committed night owl, deeply resistant to anything resembling a consistent bedtime. But I’ve been working on changing my habits lately. Because as any MD will tell you, basic as it is, sleep is one of the most important things for your health. And yet so many of us struggle with it.
That’s why I decided to talk to Mikael Kågebäck, Chief Technology & Product Officer at Sleep Cycle, a company that uses AI and signal processing to help people sleep better.
We talked about what sound can tell us about our health, why sleep regularity matters more than most of us realize, sleep patterns around the world, whether obsessively tracking your biometrics might actually be making things worse (yes, for some of us), and what it means that a handful of tech companies are now sitting on some of the most detailed population health data in the world.
Kågebäck started out as a software developer, then worked as a software architect, before going back to school to do a PhD in machine learning, with a focus on language and NLP. He has spent the last several years at the intersection of AI and sleep science, helping build Sleep Cycle from a smart alarm app into something quite interesting for public health. The app not only tracks sleep, but also managed to predict flu waves two weeks before the CDC did. And it may soon be able to screen for sleep apnea from your phone’s microphone alone. All of this by simply listening to you breathe.
It’s a conversation that starts with sleep and ends up somewhere much bigger.
PS. If you want to try it, Sleep Cycle is free until August 31.
Want to listen only? Find us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Want to support my work? Here’s how you can help:
Consider becoming a subscriber (and enjoy a week of premium for free!)
Share my posts and Substack with people who might enjoy it. Liking and commenting also helps more people discover my essays!
Make a one-off donation via Buy Me a Coffee
Pick up a copy of my book, No Apologies: How to Find and Free your Voice in the Age of Outrage
