Crippling anxiety can ruin our whole day | 3 minute read

Angela is retired with a grown-up family living in the south of England. What should have been a busy, active retirement with her partner and two Labradors was blighted first by crippling anxiety leading to periods of depression, and then by the side-swipe of Covid. 

It added up to sleepless nights. By day, Angela’s stomach would be so churned up, she says she could hardly eat. Daily activities, whether chores, fun or pet therapy visits with the younger of her dogs, had to be weighed up against the likely effect it would have later in the day, in particular at night.  

She had been taking CBD oil (an oil containing cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive compound extracted from the cannabis plant) to alleviate the anxiety. This had some positive effect, but it wasn’t solving the insomnia. Then, in October 2021, she sat down and watched The Gadget Show on tv and saw the Zeez Sleep Pebble being trialled. Sleep expert Dr Nerina Ramlakhan tested the Pebble for the programme and reported that it helped her get back to sleep through a disrupted period of her life. To sum up the programme’s presenter, Craig Charles, the Zeez Sleep Pebble “did what it said on the tin”.

But would it work for Angela?  She bought one online and it arrived at the end of November. She recalls unwrapping it immediately. Reading that the first 20 minutes of Zeez pulses could help daytime relaxation, she put it into her jeans pocket. In her words, ‘To get going with it straight away’. 

With the Pebble sitting silently in her pocket*, Angela felt something change almost at once. ‘That first afternoon, I felt a sense of calm, a reduction of anxiety,’ she recalls. By dinner time her stomach had calmed down and she was able to enjoy her dinner. The effects on her sleeping were a little slower to show, but by Christmas 2021 she was getting a better night’s rest. By the end of January ’22, she was sleeping through almost every night. She puts the delay in results down to her own anxiety. Angela reports that she’s now nowhere near as flaked in the day. As well as putting the Zeez Sleep Pebble under her pillow at night, she uses it in the evening while watching tv or reading. As a result, her tendency to jolt awake has lessened and the physical symptoms that made her so tired are less severe. 

She does still suffer some anxiety but no longer describes it as ‘crippling’. She says, “I’m getting my life back, able to function and do the things I want. Before, I was always having to say, ‘I can’t do this as I’ll have to be in bed by eight.’ A usual night would see her in bed by nine, or flat out on the sofa! She describes her previous day-to-day life as being ‘obsessed by sleep.’  

A sign of her recovery is that she once again reads her Kindle in bed. She’d stopped that simple pleasure. Angela has also started taking her younger dog on pet therapy visits again. Scent work and Flyball with a lively Labrador is also back on the agenda. Happy times.  

*Our sleep is made up of 90-minute long “cycles”, which follow a similar pattern. We get most deep sleep at the beginning of the night, and more REM dream sleep as the night progresses. The Zeez Sleep Pebble follows the human pattern of sleep cycles, beginning with 20 minutes of relaxing alpha signals. Those first 20 minutes of relaxation can be really useful during the day, as Angela’s experience shows.  And unlike the deep sleep signals (for which the Pebble must be under our head), we can pick up the alpha signals when the Zeez is close to our skin. Angela used them repeatedly, stopping and starting the Zeez every 20 minutes or so. In fact, we are so impressed with the effects that we are developing an alpha only daytime relaxation device, which will encourage relaxation throughout the day. 

To watch the Gadget Show clip, including Dr Nerina’s review of the Zeez Sleep Pebble, click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MOe0pEzcbY