Got Insomnia? You Can Count Sheep Or…

The NY Times recently published an article written by an incurable insomniac.  The writer details her own agonizing sleep problems and mentions all kinds of reasons why some people cannot sleep – including having Parkinson’s disease.

Then she found success when she created a DIY headband w/ earbuds, through which she listens to audio books.  When she’s sleeping she sleeps through the droning voice.  But when she wakes up in the middle of the night, instead of battling her thoughts and working herself into a mental frenzy, she lays back and relaxes as the audio book gently tells her whatever part of the story is going on at that moment.

It sounds doable.  And it lessens her anxiety.

Here are some quotes from the article.  The two opening paragraphs are horrific:

In 1914, The Lancet reported on a clergyman who was found dead in a pool; he had left behind this suicide note: “Another sleepless night, no real sleep for weeks. Oh, my poor brain, I cannot bear the lengthy, dark hours of the night.”

I came across that passage with a shock of recognition. Many people think that the worst part of insomnia is the daytime grogginess. But like that pastor, I suffered most in the dark hours after midnight, when my desire for sleep, my raging thirst for it, would drive me into temporary insanity. On the worst nights, my mind would turn into a mad dog that snapped and gnawed itself.

Here’s where she describes her solution:

So that’s why I — the dirty, disreputable insomniac — took matters into my own hands. I found a stretchy sock that was long enough to wrap around my head like a blindfold. Then I sewed the sock into a circle, from toe to topstitch, making sure it fit securely, so that it would stay in place no matter how I tossed and turned on the pillow. I cut two slits in the inner layer of fabric, sewing stitches to create button-hole-like openings. And then I found an old pair of earbuds, sewed foam around each bud, and threaded the foam-bumps into holes in the headgear. This way, the gizmo would hold the speakers near my ears, but not in them — more comfortable for sleeping. Once I had finished, I attached a cheap MP3 player (made by SanDisk) to the rig. Now I could roll my head around, doze, slumber or pad to the bathroom, all while listening to the new voice in my head.

My boyfriend said that he felt as if he were sleeping next to a hostage. But weird as it looked, the device offered relief. I’d cue up an audiobook and a monologue would commence, blotting out my own thoughts. Instead of laboring to calm myself, I could just drift on the voice pumped into my head. I began to wear the machine all night long, floating in and out of sleep, comforted that whatever happened, the narrator would stay with me.

From the final paragraph, where she is at peace with her now-diminished insomnia anxiety:

At 2 in the morning, with my insomnia machine strapped to my head, I listen to a volunteer reading George Meredith’s “The Egoist” in a South Indian lilt. As every parent knows, there is magic in the human voice telling a story; this is the oldest and most primitive insomnia treatment. In the dark hours, when we’re wandering in the wilderness of thought, sometimes we just need to feel that someone, even a digital someone with a prerecorded voice, is watching over us.

Bottom line:

Literature did not cure my insomnia, but transformed it into a manageable condition.