Inspired by a bizarre sleep study involving the Australian digeridoo, Dr Brian Krohn has developed Soundly, an app that turns a proven clinical therapy for snoring into a fun, retro video game.

Prefer to read? Download the full episode transcript here

Episode Highlights

* 1:47 Introducing Dr Brian Krohn 

* 2:41 What is the Soundly app? 

* 4:16 Dr Brian Krohn explains his eclectic career

* 6:46 Academia and business. Oil and water? 

* 8:50 Creating a research-led product

* 10:06 From climate change research to sleep science

* 14:46 A brief overview of snoring

* 18:06 Sleep apnea, snoring and digeridoos – the research

* 19:53 A ‘push-up’ for your breathing airway muscles

* 23:05 Space invaders: how to gamify a clinical therapy

* 25:37 Soundly: the clinical study

* 28:04 How long does it take to work?

* 31:02 Thoughts on the future of sleep medicine

* 34:34 Where to get the Soundly app

Jeff Mann talks with Soundly CEO Dr Brian Krohn about snoring, innovation, digeridoos and space invaders.. amongst other other stuff

Way back in 2013, I wrote about a fascinating but bizarre sleep study which proved that playing the digeridoo was an effective alternative therapy for treating patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

I forget about this diverting piece of research until I met Brian Krohn at the Somnex Sleep Show in London last month. He was there to talk about his new app Soundly, a natural way to treat snoring which gamifies some of the therapeutic principles behind the digeridoo study.

Still in his early thirties, Dr Brian Krohn's career has criss-crossed the fields of academia, innovation and entrepreneurship in an impressive array of projects both serious..... and not so serious.

These include pioneering a new method of manufacturing clean biodiesel, co-founding one of the largest hop-farms in the Midwest, developing diagnostic tools for neurosurgery, and oh, yeah, a Kickstarter that makes 'magic wizard staffs'

But now Brian's mission is sleep, so we caught up after the show to talk more about his work as a scientist and entrepreneur, and how he's created a natural method of reducing snoring by playing a retro video game. Enjoy!

This episode's guest:

Dr Brian Krohn

Still in his early thirties, Dr Brian Krohn's career has traversed the fields of academia, innovation and entrepreneurship. We catch up with Dr Krohn to hear more about his eclectic career, his journey into sleep medicine and his revolutionary snoring app, Soundly.

Links:

Soundly App - http://sleepsound.ly/

Can a Digeridoo Cure Sleep Apnea -  http://sleepjunkies.com/sleep-apnea/digeridoo-treatment-for-os/

Magic Wizard Stuff - https://magicwizardstaff.com/

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAHJRV7rXtk

 

Full Transcription

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Introducing Dr Brian Krohn

Jeff Mann: So I'm here with Brian Krohn today, now I bumped into Brian down at the Somme next show a couple of w...