In general, I really like the idea of using personal mobile computing devices in treating/preventing chronic conditions. As devices and sensors get smarter and cheaper, it’s logical that they start playing role in helping individuals deal with chronic, lifestyle affecting conditions like migraines, sleep disorders, allergies, dysmenorrhea, depression etc.
Proactive Sleep provides a ‘smart alarm clock’ for iPhone/iPod Touch. Some features: customize what music to fall asleep to, and to wake up with, a dynamic ‘vigilance game’ that you need to complete to turn the alarm off, and a sleep diary to note your observations and sleeping habits. Nothing earth-shattering there. The features may be simple, and its not my intention to critique Proactive Sleep per se. What I want to emphasize is that applications like these are a step in the right direction overall.
For a number of chronic disorders with no established cause (like migraines, insomnia), keeping an accurate log (diary) can be extremely useful for prevention and treatment. Integrating such ‘digital diary’ into daily lifestyle can be much more convenient and smart way of keeping track of such conditions. Proactive Sleep is a bit too manual, in my opinion (e.g. you need to document everything in your sleep diary yourself). What would be awesome is to combine it with a smart sensor (like the FitBit) to automatically record your sleep habits. That way its even more Health 2.0.