This puffer jacket uses light and sound to lull you to sleep anywhere
Often described as one of the world's most sleep-deprived nations, Japan repeatedly ranks last, or near last, in international surveys and studies on sleep duration and quality.
One design firm has developed a creative solution that it believes can give real power to naps.
Its 'smart' puffer jacket concept is intended to optimize short naps by providing bespoke sound and lighting based on the user's biometric data, such as heart rate and body temperature, which is gathered by a wearable ring.
'We realized that sleep is a very personal thing,' said Dai Miyata, creative art director of Konel, which developed the jacket in collaboration with the sleep technology division at NTT DX Partners, a digital consulting firm.
'You can't force someone to sleep, they have to fall asleep on their own. So, we started thinking, is there something we can create that helps people ease into sleep on their own terms?'
The ZZZN sleep apparel is designed to be worn day-to-day as a normal jacket, albeit an oversized one, but users can also activate 'sleep mode' by putting up the hood when they want a snooze on their commute home.
Not yet intended as a consumer product, a conceptual prototype of the invention will be on display from June 24 until July 7 at Expo 2025 Osaka, where visitors will be able to test it out for themselves. Miyata hopes that the innovation will make people 'more curious about sleep,' and spark conversations about how to approach rest better.
'It's such a familiar part of life, yet there's still so much we don't know about it,' he added.
Konel began developing the jacket last year with a grant from Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, as part of a program to transform personal healthcare data into usable services and products.
'With Japan being one of the most sleep-deprived countries, we've been thinking about how to tackle this issue through business initiatives,' said Teppei Ogata, production manager for NTT DX Partners' sleep technology division.
The company's previous efforts didn't lead to significant behavior changes, Ogata said: so instead, they decided to take a 'fun and creative' approach coming up with the playful concept of 'portable sleep.'
The jacket is based on 'yogi,' a quilted kimono worn which was popular in the Edo period (1615–1868) for sleeping, particularly in winter. While yogi is often compared to pajamas, it's 'closer to something you could fall asleep in, and then just wake up and go,' said Miyata. 'It's more like a fusion of clothing and bedding.'
With a deep hood for privacy, the ZZZN jacket has an inbuilt system that converts the wearer's biometric data into light and sound.
It uses red light to induce sleep, while blue light is intended to suppress melatonin to wake the body up. Minyata said the light pulses at rates that mimic slow breathing patterns, to promote deeper sleep, and are accompanied by 'neuromusic' with frequencies that 'act directly on brain waves to aid sleep.' Some preliminary studies have found that music or sounds of certain frequencies could improve sleep, although more research is needed.
The biometric ring continues to monitor the wearer's stress as they doze off. 'If the person's stress level significantly decreases, the same light and sound are maintained, but if their stress doesn't decrease much, the system switches to sounds that are even more effective at promoting sleep,' said Miyata.
While the jacket might seem like a gimmick, it's rooted in a real problem.
A study published this year found that the nation was ranked last on sleep duration out of 20 nations, with an average nightly sleep duration 94 minutes shorter than France, which topped the rankings.
One analysis of the economic cost of poor sleep (measured in reduced productivity, traffic accidents from tiredness, and other accidents or injuries) found that Japan loses up to $138 billion a year, which equates to around 3% of its GDP.
Lack of sleep is so widespread that some schools and offices have reportedly introduced nap breaks into the day, and it's not unusual to see people sleeping in public, known as 'inemuri.'
According to the Mayo Clinic, short naps of around 20 minutes can improve alertness, mood, and memory. However, napping for longer periods can disrupt your sleep cycle, and deeper stages of sleep are harder to wake up from, causing grogginess.
It's not just Japan that struggles to sleep: Singapore and South Korea also have short sleep duration, while in the US, more than 50 million people (or about 15% of the total population) struggle with sleep disorders, and one-third of adults are not getting the recommended amount of sleep.
A recent study found that the optimal amount of sleep appears to vary between countries, depending on cultural norms. But while it noted that those who slept close to their 'cultural ideal sleep duration,' scored best in health metrics, it also found that within individual countries, people who slept longer were healthier
Miyata emphasizes that innovations like the puffer jacket are not a substitute for a good night's rest.
'We're not saying take naps so you can get by on fewer hours of sleep, but rather that by breaking up sleep intelligently, people who only get six hours of sleep might be able to get closer to eight hours, which is a positive outcome,' he said, adding: 'This isn't about solving sleep issues just so people can work more. Rather, this is a concept model aimed at creating a culture that values sleep.'
The jacket, which was initially unveiled at Milan Design Week in April, is currently a 'conceptual prototype' — so while visitors to the 'Future Life Village' at Expo 2025 Osaka will be able to try it out, it's operated manually by Miyata and his team rather than adapting to each user's biometric data.
Whether the conceptual sleep tech will become commercially available is still to be seen, but Ogata believes that the 'sleep system' could be adopted by regular apparel manufacturers and integrated into existing clothing products. 'We've started efforts to create collaborative products like co-branded items aimed at establishing a new kind of sleepwear value, using this system,' he said.
Ogata would also like to further personalize the jacket's responses — for example, offering different music tracks for waking up. He hopes that the jacket will help to shift the cultural perception around sleep; and perhaps give some of its early users at the expo a high-tech rest.
'It really does feel like entering a personal space. You feel completely shut off from the noise of everyday life,' he added.
Additional reporting by Mai Takiguchi, CNN.
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