Brent Franson never imagined his own app would deliver the news that made him rethink everything about his health.
He built the Death Clock, a tool driven by artificial intelligence that tells people when and how they might die, using data like their habits, genetics, and daily routines. Franson, now 43, was never actually bothered by the idea of dying — in fact, he accepted his own mortality pretty casually.
What really scared him was the possibility of developing Alzheimer’s disease. That fear became almost tangible when his own creation suggested Alzheimer’s could be a likely cause of his death, pinpointing the dreaded possibility at age 76.
Franson had read his fate, and the message felt like a punch. He always knew dementia ran in the family and even discovered that his genetics gave him a higher risk for the condition.
But he wasn’t exactly making the situation better. For years, he got by on terrible sleep, using sedatives to knock himself out, working late, eating huge meals at night, and battling to juggle fatherhood with an exhausting schedule.
Scientific research has shown that sleeping fewer than seven hours a night increases the likelihood of developing dementia. For someone predisposed, losing sleep was like stacking the odds against himself.
Turning Fear Into Action
Franson realized he needed to take drastic steps. He vowed to overhaul his nights and transform his approach to rest, calling himself a “sleep athlete” in the process.
He ditched phones from his bedroom, fixed a strict nine-thirty bedtime, and made dinner early at five-thirty to avoid going to sleep on a full stomach. Installing blackout curtains and keeping his room at a cool fifteen degrees became nonnegotiable parts of the new routine.
Experts agree that a colder room helps to trigger deeper sleep and keeps the brain working better for longer. In addition, Franson cut out alcohol entirely, since booze is known to mess with memory and shrink parts of the brain that are crucial for thinking and recall.
After a full year of sticking to this new lifestyle, Franson input his fresh stats into the app to see what had changed. The results stunned him.
His life expectancy jumped by a full nine years. While Alzheimer’s showed up as a possibility, the app now also flagged heart problems and cancer as contenders, a sobering reminder that the future is always uncertain.
For Franson, though, the real win was confronting his deepest fear and choosing to fight back with every hour of good sleep.
