In Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2018 novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, an unnamed, Mrs Dalloway-like protagonist gradually escalates her use of prescription pills in order to sleep for an entire year. Had she been aware of it, she might have also bought a subscription to NuCalm, an app that promises to wind you right down, and fast. It plays you the sort of music you might hear at a spa paired with a biosignal processing disc (read: an anti-stress patch worn on your wrist) designed to stimulate micro-currents that convert Beta brainwaves (used for logic and reasoning) into Alpha and Theta brainwaves (used for more intuitive and relaxing tasks). 20 minutes of NuCalm rest is akin to about two hours of regular sleep, the company says. Meaning that Moshfegh’s protagonist would have slept for a whole six years, had she been smart enough to read the front page of the Daily Mail last August and see Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, wielding one of NuCalm’s stickers on her forearm.
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