I must have noise to go along with going to sleep. Usually thats an audio book or long-form video essay type YouTube videos. I wear one earbud to bed if I’m sleeping at night with my girlfriend or just blare it from the TV if I’m sleeping alone during the day (rotating shift). I feel like when I don’t have engaging audio and I’m trying to sleep I can’t quiet my mind enough to sleep. A fan or random ambient noise isn’t enough for me.
I had insomnia for about the first 45 years of my life. At its worst, I would miss at least one night of sleep per week. By “miss” I mean I would go to bed at a reasonable hour, lay there with the lights off and my eyes closed until about 4:00am, when I’d get out of bed, get dressed, and go to work.
I tried drinking myself into a stupor. I tried white noise CDs. I even got a prescription for Ambien from my doctor. That scared me because I thought meds would do the trick, but I took it and still didn’t sleep.
One day I saw a post about the Sleep With Me Podcast. It’s described as bedtime stories for adults. I followed the link, started listening, and thought, “this guy may be the most boring person I’ve ever heard”.
I started playing it when I went to bed, and it worked for me from the very first night. I fell asleep within minutes of starting the episode, but then I woke up after it ended.
The next night I loaded my phone with all the episodes. I slept through the night, but then I couldn’t wake up in the morning. My alarm would go off, I’d hit snooze, then I’d hear the podcast playing and fall asleep again.
What I finally settled on was setting a sleep timer to stop the podcast a few minutes before my alarm would go off.
I’ve been listening to that podcast every night for the last 11 years. It’s been the best sleep of my life. I’ve actually had the experience of being consciously aware of losing consciousness. It’s a weird and wonderful thing.
The thing about the stories he tells is that it seems like there might be a point, and you start listening to the story, but he goes on so many tangents and diversions that it never actually goes anywhere. After a while, my brain just shuts down.
The first episode I listened to was telling a story about a group of people about to enter a pyramid. It ran for over an hour, but I didn’t hear more than a few minutes.
The next episode continued the same story, and when I started it the next night, the people were still outside the pyramid. In over an hour of telling the story the night before, absolutely nothing happened.