When I wind down at the end of the day, I have to trick my mind into focusing on something easy. Redirect it to relaxing thoughts. It’s part of the reason I read as much as I do. It’s the primary reason I like to read while working out – using up all of my physical and mental energy at one time so I leave the gym exhausted.The trouble begins when the lights go off and I lay in bed with my eyes closed trying to fall asleep. My mind starts whirling like the fan of an overheated computer.

The best cure so far has been to listen to podcasts. This does raise a few issues, though.

  • Deafness: I don’t want to be listing to things all night because I don’t think that’s wise in terms of hearing health. When I switched from an iPod to a smart phone, I was able to set a timer to my podcasts so they shut off automagically. I also use the lowest volume setting available.
  • Death: I don’t want to die by strangulation from an earbuds cord. Or by having an earbud go so far into my ear canal that it hits my brain and kills me. Either of those things would be embarrassing. I believe I have circumvented these issues by only listening most nights with one earbud and making sure it is barely in my ear. But the risk of mortifying death is still present.
  • Side Effects: There is a certain type of voice that puts me right to sleep. After years of training myself to fall asleep when I hear a certain cadence of voice, when I encounter that same speaking style during the day, it’s all I can do stay awake. To all the British people who have made me yawn? I apologize.

I’ve tried out many different podcasts to determine which ones helped me sleep the best. I generally stick with NPR because no matter how outlandish the story is, the reporters’ voices stay calm. I used to listen to world news because that would put me to sleep even in the middle of the day. Eventually I learned too much from the podcasts, started caring more and world news stopped cutting it.

Terry Gross from Fresh Air has a beautiful voice. It builds in pitch as each sentence or phrase goes on and then drops at the end. It doesn’t drop in the way young girls’ voices drop turning everything into a question. It just has a steady up and down to it. In addition to a nice voice, I also like how Terry Gross (all NPR hosts should be referred to by their full name, don’t you think?) conducts interviews and sometimes I get distracted from sleep by the subject matter. If I am completely uninterested in the topic, Terry Gross is my gal. Puts me right to sleep.

I’ve been pretty obsessed with Pop Culture Happy Hour lately and tried sleeping to that, but I consistently like it too much and it makes me laugh, literally, so it’s a no-go.

Again and again the person who puts me to sleep the quickest is David Bianculli, who, until looking up the proper spelling to write this, I always thought was David Bean Cooley. David Bianculli, a TV critic, sometimes fills in for Terry Gross and he often does entertainment segments on the show.

Now, lest you say that this is an insult to someone’s work, I assure you that I mean it in the nicest of ways when I say that David Bianculli puts me to sleep. His segments are typically short and they tend to focus on media and pop culture, which I enjoy but don’t find taxing or stressful. He speaks with the same up and down that Terry Gross has and tends towards shorter sentences, which make sense as he’s explaining complicated plot lines. If I stay awake for more than one of his segments, I learn about the pop culture I enjoy. And if I fall asleep, it’s with a little gratitude for David Bianculli.

Photo by Elisa Nobe
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.