I have trouble sticking to a sleep schedule, but I find that my health and productivity are dramatically improved when I have sustained periods of sleep schedule maintenance, so I wanted to find a way to help myself stick to a sleep routine. Sometimes I get into bed and lay there for a long time trying to feel tired. Waking up feels like a chore most mornings. So I started brainstorming how I could train my brain to sleep better. I wanted to do something that would be simple to automate so that it didn't rely on me doing something, and that could work in the background without requiring my attention.

The idea I settled one would be to associate a particular smell (in my case, lavender) with going to sleep, and another one (citrus) with waking up. Each oil is activated by an ultrasonic vibration module located in that oil's respective well, and runs intermittently before and after the scheduled sleep/wake time.