Week 8

This week I participated in Gurus Day. It was extremely insightful, I spoke with Noman Aln and Rachael Farquenson. We discussed my project in depth, although I am still not set on a final idea or even a route, bouncing ideas and theories was a very useful experience.

My session with Norman Alm was extremely useful, he made me realise that I genuinely did not want to base my project on vitamins and minerals. In the back of my head, I already knew that, but discussing the topic with someone like Norman who's experience is immense, it got into my head that I could do much more with this project than dealing with hypothetical tablets. I think that it is important that my project includes researched recovery techniques. It doesn’t make sense for me to create a whole new recovery scheme when industry professionals have done so for years and we should trust that what they say is best. I think that there would be a design opportunity to build on some pre-existing treatment places that have some real evidence behind it.

On the back of Gurus day I have decided to look further into sleep hygiene - what makes a good nights sleep.

Contributing factors include:

- Exercise

- Reserving the bed just for sleep or sex

- Be comfortable

- Start a sleep ritual

- Eat (but not too much)

- Avoid alcohol and caffeine

- De-stress

- Get checked for sleep related conditions

I found from my primary research that anxiety before bedtime and first thing in the morning was an issue. People experience unwanted nightmares so they are scared to go to sleep in the first place. I must identify if there is an opportunity for design in this area of research.

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Another avenue I would like to explore further is CBT. From an interview I conducted the interviewee revealed that the current coronavirus pandemic is halting his progress.

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At this stage I am quite worried that I do not have a clear vision or a main focus. I conducted an exercise on myself where I rounded up everything that I have found out so far then aimed to identify areas of interest, problem areas and potential solutions.

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I then took the rest of the week off due to testing positive for the coronavirus and taking unwell.