“It gives me something else to focus on. I think taking the focus to something external helps me fall asleep.”
Most of us experience disturbed sleep at some point in their lives.
For some people, it is difficult to fall asleep after a stressful day. For others, it is waking repeatedly through the night. Parents, carers, shift workers, entrepreneurs, people navigating menopause, and those living with long-term conditions – poor sleep appears in many forms and at many stages of life.
At LYEONS, sleep has become one of the most common reasons people tell us they reach for LYEONS Heart. Hayley Collen was one of those people.
Hayley’s experience reflects a broader pattern emerging across our early user feedback. In an observational survey of 18 users, sleep was one of the most frequently reported use cases, with 74% of respondents saying they used LYEONS Heart before or during sleep. Many described using the device as part of their bedtime routine or during periods of heightened stress, helping them feel calmer, more grounded, and better able to transition into rest.
While individual experiences vary, sleep consistently emerged alongside stress regulation as one of the most valued aspects of the device. Several participants described expanding their use over time from stressful situations into sleep settings, suggesting that the device became integrated into their daily routines beyond moments of acute overwhelm.
About Hayley
Hayley Collen has spent years supporting people building ideas that create positive impact.
She is an impact investor, advisor and innovation champion with experience spanning corporate finance, private equity portfolio management, entrepreneurship programmes and board leadership. Across her career, she has supported hundreds of organisations and helped entrepreneurs navigate some of the most uncertain stages of building something new.
She is Director of Epiphron Limited, an Investment Committee Member at Impact Shakers, and has served as a Mentor and Board Member for Imperial Venture Mentoring Service (IVMS), Imperial College London’s flagship mentoring programme modelled on MIT’s approach to venture support.
Hayley has also been one of the people supporting LYEONS from the very beginning.
As mentors often do, she asked difficult questions, challenged assumptions, pointed us towards opportunities, and encouraged us to keep going when the path ahead felt uncertain.
Sometimes that support came in unexpected ways.
When a neuroscience funding opportunity appeared, Hayley immediately shared it with us, making sure we had not missed it. Long before LYEONS Heart reached users, she was helping shape the journey behind the scenes.
What we did not expect was that she would later become one of our earliest users too.
When Your Mind Won’t Switch Off
For Hayley, sleep difficulties often arrive in a very particular form – earworms.
“Unsolicited music in my head at night. Always songs with words, not just instrumental music. The tune starts for no reason at all and stays with me and keeps me awake.”
Many people experience earworms from time to time. For Hayley, they can become persistent enough to interfere with sleep.
She described lying in bed, ready to rest, only for a song to begin repeating itself over and over.
Earworms, known scientifically as involuntary musical imagery (INMI), are the experience of music replaying in the mind without conscious effort. According to researchers at the Goldsmiths, University of London Involuntary Musical Imagery Project, more than 90% of people experience earworms at least once a week. While often harmless, persistent earworms can become distracting and, for some individuals, interfere with concentration, relaxation, and sleep.
For Hayley, the challenge was not simply having a song stuck in her head. It was the way the repetition kept her attention active when she was trying to switch off and fall asleep.
Rather than trying to force the thoughts away, she found herself turning towards something external.
“If I settle but find that I’m not shifting into sleep because there’s a tune playing, then I probably reach for my device.”
“It gives me something else to focus on.”
External Rather Than Internal
One of the themes Hayley returned to repeatedly was the idea of external focus.
Many sleep strategies ask us to turn inward – monitor our breathing, observe our thoughts, journal our feelings.
For some people, those approaches are helpful.
For others, more inward attention can sometimes feel difficult.
“I’ve never done very well with things like journaling because that’s too inward-looking.”
“If you’re already thinking about things too much, or hearing an unwanted tune, I think there is an advantage to taking the focus outside the body.”
For Hayley, LYEONS Heart became a gentle external anchor.
“I think that’s why I like this. It’s an external device rather than asking me to add more inward-looking inputs.”
A Personal Sleep Companion
From the moment she first saw LYEONS Heart, Hayley hoped it could help her sleep. Over time, she developed her own bedtime routine around it.
She usually holds the LYEONS Heart in her right hand as she falls asleep.
“I’ve probably developed quite clear patterns that I think work.”
She prefers slower rhythms and softer intensity settings for night-time use.
“I have the pulse set quite slow and I have it set very quietly.”
“The noise isn’t dominant at all.”
Unlike white noise machines that can affect everyone in the room, she appreciated how personal the experience felt.
“I think that’s one of the really useful features.”
“I would never use one of the white noise machines because I think it would disturb the whole room. Another advantage is how small and portable the LYEONS Heart is, it is very easy to transport and use wherever you go, in comparison to many sleep aid devices.”
“For me, this is a very personalised device that is mine for an episode of earworms.”
Even waking during the night became an opportunity to reset.
“If I wake in the night, the earworms can start again and so I pick up the device and spend some more time recalibrating.”
Interestingly, she noticed she often continued holding the device even after falling asleep.
“I’m surprised that I haven’t dropped it.”
“I wake up sometimes and I’m still holding it.”
Sleep Matters More Than We Realise
Sleep is increasingly recognised as one of the foundations of long-term brain health.
Research continues to explore links between sleep and emotional wellbeing, cognitive performance, memory consolidation and neurodegenerative conditions.
For Hayley, this broader picture matters.
“I think sleep is such an interesting area because it affects everyone.”
“It seems that everyone has poor sleep, but for different reasons at different stages of life.”
She reflected on the many reasons people struggle.
Modern lifestyles. Screens. Flexible working. Caring responsibilities. Shift work. Stress.
“I think there’s a huge number of reasons why people are struggling.”
Improving sleep, for her, is not simply about feeling less tired tomorrow but future health and wellness as well.
“It is that long-term insurance of improving my chances, really.”
Building Something Inclusive
As someone who has spent years supporting entrepreneurs and thinking about products that create real impact, Hayley also noticed something we had not fully appreciated ourselves.
She was drawn to the way LYEONS Heart combines touch, sound and light, allowing different people to engage with the device in different ways.
“One thing I think is really clever is that it pulses, it breathes and has a light. The one device will actually help a whole range of people with different sensory abilities without them needing a specific device.”
She reflected that people naturally gravitate towards different sensory inputs. Some are drawn to the rhythm they feel in their hand, others to the gentle sound, while others focus on the light.
Rather than asking everyone to interact with the device in the same way, Hayley’s feedback was that the LYEONS Heart is a very inclusive device that gives users options to find what works best for them.
“I think that’s so beneficial.”
Sharing It With Others
Hayley has also become one of LYEONS Heart’s biggest advocates. She often carries the device with her and naturally finds herself sharing it with others.
During a talk on entrepreneurship, she was asked what innovations she was most excited about. As it happened, LYEONS Heart was sitting in her pocket, so she was able to take it out and pass it around the room.
“It was really nice to be able to pass it around a group of MSc students. Something tangible always means more than talking about things theoretically.”
Since then, she has noticed a pattern. Whenever she shows the device to friends or colleagues, people instinctively pick it up and continue holding it throughout the conversation.
“They very naturally hold the device for the rest of the conversation. Eventually I have to ask for it back.”
For Hayley, those moments say something about the device that is difficult to explain with words alone. People often seem to understand it best once they have held it in their own hands.
Looking Ahead
Hayley’s experience reminds us that there is no single reason people struggle with sleep.
For some, it is a racing mind replaying conversations from the day. For others, it is worrying about tomorrow, waking repeatedly through the night, or, like Hayley, a song they never chose to play.
While the reasons are different, what many people describe looking for is the same: something simple, gentle and easy to reach for when sleep feels out of reach.
Stories like Hayley’s are helping us ask better questions about where support may be most valuable and what we should investigate next.
Building LYEONS has also changed the way we think about sleep ourselves. Like many founders, researchers and carers, members of our team have experienced periods where sleep became something to sacrifice in pursuit of the next milestone. Over time, we have come to appreciate that protecting our brains is not separate from how we live our lives. Sleep is one of the ways we care for them.
It is a question we are excited to continue exploring through future research.
LYEONS Heart is a general wellbeing device. It is not a medical device and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any medical condition.This article shares Hayley’s personal experiences with LYEONS Heart. Her reflections describe what she noticed in her own life and should not be interpreted as evidence of therapeutic benefit or clinical effectiveness.
Leave a Reply