Sleep — refreshing, sexy sleep

For when you need a sleep aid but you're all out of Ambien.

Things are heating up on the ol’ house-hunting front; I don’t want to say too much until contracts are signed, etc., but if all goes well, we’ll be moving in a couple of months. Which is insane. 

We’re buying this place. It comes with a guy! 

(We’re not buying this place, don’t worry. Our place is guy-less. I just love that this is the listing photo. Such charm! Bring your imagination, investors!) 

Because of all the excitement, Scott and I have been having a tough time sleeping, so my sister Liz recommended this hypnosis app, Paul McKenna’s “I Can Make You Sleep” — which, she said, “rewired her brain.” Sounds intrusive! And yet we could do with some rewiring (or at least I could), so we bought that app, $7.99 and all. 

The last time I tried hypnosis, I was pregnant. I had these hypnobirthing tapes which I listened to on a WalkMan—not because a DiscMan didn’t yet exist but because the tapes were not available on anything but cassettes. Adorable. The founder of Hypnobirthing did her own recordings and she had a distinctive accent, such that when she did the “Rainbow Relaxation” script and said “strawberry mist” she said “strawrberry” and it drove me to distraction. Nevertheless, Henry managed to be born without me flipping out too much so I’d say it worked. At the very least, there’s nothing like lying down for a “hypnosis session” to then have the nap of your life. 

Fun fact: One of the tips I had read about childbirth was that you should visualize your ideal birthing experience, from beginning to end. So every day I began to visualize, and I would start with the idea that Henry would be born two weeks early and the childbirth would last five hours. (Don’t ask me where I came up with these numbers.) And immediately after I established those parameters, I would fall asleep. (I basically spent my pregnancy napping.) So that was all I managed to visualize before sleep overtook me: five hours, two weeks. As it turned out, nothing about the birth went according to plan, except that Henry was born two weeks early and he arrived at right about the five-hour mark. So thanks for that, unconscious! 

At any rate, this sleep hypnosis app seems to actually work, and therefore I recommend it, even though it is highly silly. Scott used it for a while before I took the plunge, and I had the disadvantage of enjoying Scott’s Paul McKenna impersonation. He’s got a growly British sexpot voice that borders on caricature. He makes a whole damn meal out of the word “refreshing.” And at one point he purrs “that’s right” and I feel like a dirty girl. So when I listened on that first night I couldn’t stop snickering. And yet god damn, but he put me out like a light.

When that doesn’t work (sometimes I’m very excited! We’re going to live in the country, oh my god!) I turn to the podcast “Nothing Much Happens,” also recommended by Liz, who pretty much advises me on everything. In Nothing Much Happens, you guessed it, nothing much happens. The podcast narrator has a soothing voice and tells stories about, like, taking a walk and watching fireflies, or going on a picnic. Then she tells the story again, only more slowly. I have never made it through an entire episode. Highly recommend. (There's also a book!)