The Subjective and Objective Improvement of Non-Invasive Treatment of Schumann Resonance in Insomnia—A Randomized and Double-Blinded Study

Purpose: Accumulated studies revealed that electromagnetic field can affect human brain and sleep, and the extremely low-frequency electromagnetic field, Schumann resonance, may have the potential to reduce insomnia symptoms. The purpose of this study was to investigate the responses of patients with insomnia to a non-invasive treatment, Schumann resonance (SR), and to evaluate its effectiveness by subjective and objective sleep assessments. Patients and Methods: We adopted a double-blinded and randomized design and 40 participants (70% female; 50.00 ± 13.38 year) with insomnia completed the entire study. These participants were divided into the SR-sleep-device group and the placebo-device group and were followed up for four weeks. The study used polysomnography (PSG) to measure objective sleep and used sleep diaries, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Inventory (PSQI), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), and visual analogy of sleep satisfaction to measure subjective sleep. The 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) was used to evaluate quality of life. Chi-square test, Mann– Whitney U-test, and Wilcoxon test were used to analyze the data. Results: About 70% of the subjects were women, with an average age of 50±13.38 years and an average history of insomnia of 9.68±8.86 years. We found that in the SR-sleep-device group, objective sleep measurements (sleep-onset-latency, SOL, and total-sleep-time, TST) and subjective sleep questionnaires (SOL, TST, sleep-efficiency, sleep-quality, daytime-sleepiness, and sleep-satisfaction) were significantly improved after using the SR-sleep-device; in the placebo-device group, only such subjective sleep improvements as PSQI and sleep-satisfaction were observed. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the SR-sleep-device can reduce the insomnia symptoms through both objective and subjective tests, with minimal adverse effects. Future studies can explore the possible mechanism of SR and health effects and, with a longer tracking time, verify the effectiveness and side effects.