Repost: An Expert's Guide to Sleeping.

After accidentally ordering an extra donut at Dunkin' Donuts this morning, I proceeded to spill half of my coffee on both myself and the interior of my six month old car. And then the bag ripped open and my donuts fell onto the floor of my car. So many horrible things happened to me in such a short amount of time, I didn't know whether I was supposed to be pissed or amazed.

Anyway, here is the last thing that I wrote for the "old" Waxeater before it went offline a couple of days later. I'm reposting it because a) it's totally useful information and b) Darrin was asking about the model of sound conditioner I use. So rather than just tell him, I'm making him wade through like six paragraphs of bullshit about sleep masks and facerape. Enjoy!

An Expert's Guide to Sleeping

Of the handful of things that I would dare consider myself any good at, most of them wouldn't even qualify as skills. For example; I don't set out to choose the slowest toll lane, it just happens. But I am an excellent sleeper, and that is something that I consider a fine art -- one that I have actively pursued and I believe perfected during my thirty-one years on this miserable planet. So it is with absolute confidence that I share with you my tips and tricks for sleeping (including napping) in a number of different situations.

Napping

One constant in my life has been an undying love of napping. Even in high school and during my early twenties, back when my youthful energy was at its most unstoppable, I embraced and looked forward to a good nap. Whether it be on the couch in front of the television, in my bed, or in Spanish class, I could -- and often did -- nap anywhere. But as I've gotten older, that ability -- much like my hair and also unexplainable boners -- has become much more elusive.

Most of my naps occur either on weekends, during the afternoon, or that brief period that I have during the week between work and the gym. With the latter, I only have about an hour from the time that I pull into my driveway until the time that I absolutely, positively need to be ready to leave my house and go train. This is no big deal since most experts seem to agree that you only need about twenty minutes in order to properly nap -- any less and you're still tired, any more and you're groggy. I've found, through relentless experimentation, that my ideal nap time is closer to twenty-five or thirty minutes though that's not really all that far off from their estimates. But what those fatcat sleep experts won't tell you is that the duration of your nap is only half the battle; your surroundings play an enormous role in how you feel after you awake from your nap, and this was noticeable to me during my evening naps, between work and before practice. Whether I slept for fifteen minutes or forty-five minutes, I always woke up far too out of it to train, or really do anything other than eat and go right back to sleep, effectively pissing away an entire night. After a few months of this, I tried leaving the television on in my living room, as well as a couple of lights around the house and found that it was much easier to "come to" this way. My guess is that waking up in the dark and in complete silence too closely recreates "real" sleep and therefore totally fucks my shit all up, to put it into technical terms. So don't take your surroundings for granted while napping, especially during the evening (which is normally a terrible idea anyway considering the fact that you just spent eight hours working). If you have any intention whatsoever on waking up and rejoining the real world, make sure that there are lights or noise (outside of white noise, which I'll cover later) in order to make your transition a bit easier.

Sleeping

For arguments sake, let's start out by defining sleeping (as opposed to napping) as any sleep that lasts for more than two consecutive hours.

Now, just like a good nap requires some form of stimuli in order to keep you somewhat grounded in consciousness, a good sleep requires you to completely turn off the outside world. It's not enough to just turn off the lights and lie down, especially if you're just some jerk sitting in coach's torturous semi-reclining seats. Unfortunately, this is something that I only recently picked up, on my third twenty-plus hour plane ride to Thailand.

One of the things you'll need is a pair of reusable foam ear plugs. Harder ear plugs may block more sound, but they're not advisable for cramming into your ears for hours at a time. Soft ear plugs are far more comfortable and will block out most of the noise around you, even on an airplane. In addition to long plane rides, I've also worn these to bed at home in certain situations, and never had a problem with them falling out or becoming uncomfortable. I think I picked mine up in a CVS for a buck or two.

This next item will be a bit more difficult for most of you to accept, but I want you to trust me; once you get over the initial shame of wearing one, you'll wonder why it took you so damned long.

Go out and buy yourself a sleep mask. I know that you dudes are most likely going to have a problem with this, but if you love sleep like I love sleep, I promise you that this is the best move you will ever make. After I started using a sleep mask, and before I mistakenly left it behind on a plane, I racked up countless hours of top quality, snoring and drooling, "is that guy okay?" slumber, even in the most sinister conditions. It didn't matter how many babies cried or how many jerkoffs with window seats left their blinds open despite having absolutely nothing of interest to look at; I was, for all intents and purposes, comatose. For those of you worried that sleep masks are kind of "gay"; yes, you do run the risk of strangers casually drop their dick into your mouth and make subtle movements until they finish, but you are guaranteed to remain asleep throughout the entire ordeal. And are you going to let a little mouth rape stand in between you and the most peaceful slumber you've ever had?

Much like the ear plugs, I've also worn a sleep mask at home, where I'm free from a judgemental and presumptuous public. A very poorly placed street light just outside of my bedroom window was something I didn't consider while house shopping, and it wasn't until my first night in my new home that I realized my room would remain lit up like a disco throughout the night. In addition to making it difficult to sleep at times, it also made things kind of awkward when I had girls over. Seriously, I had girls over. So instead of buying blinds that worked or shooting out the street light, I accepted my sleepless fate. That was until I realized that I had purchased a sleep mask for the plane, and even though it smelled a little weird (I never understood whether or not I was able to wash that thing), there was nothing stopping me from using it at home. And suddenly my room was as pitch black as Glenn Beck's soul, and not only was I sleeping without interruption, but I was waking up each morning refreshed and slightly less miserable than I had ever anticipated.

My final secret to sleep success is white noise, though I must warn you that your mileage may vary. Though I'm "retired" now, I previously played in bands for about thirteen years. The venues were usually small, and the music was always loud, so my hearing took a bit of a beating. Silence no longer exists for me as tinnitus has made my life a never-ending test of the Emergency Broadcast System. Imagine lying down, closing your eyes, and trying to sleep while a perpetual fire alarm goes off between your ears. It is really, really fucking annoying. While I started using white noise in order to get to sleep a while ago, I have to assume that it originally started as a way for me to drown out the ringing in my head. For many years a small window fan on its lowest setting and propped up in the corner of my room did the job, but then I realized it was a little on the counterproductive side to have a fan (even a fan set on its lowest setting) running even during Pennsylvania's frigid winters. So for Christmas last year I finally asked for an actual white noise maker: the Marpac 980A, the Cadillac of "sound conditioners." But a funny thing happened to me for the first two weeks I used my new sound conditioner; I couldn't stop having the strangest dreams. Every night seemed to get weirder and weirder, and I was remembering each one pretty clearly, unlike most of my dreams. I even wrote some of them down, and while I won't bore you with the details of my nonsensical dreams, but I will say that they included walking around South Philadelphia barefoot and soliciting auto garages, and living in a house made of old books. The dreams came to a sudden halt a couple of weeks later, but they were so consistent and consistently weird that I was beginning to worry. It's been extremely smooth sailing ever since, though.

So there it is; my expert guide to sleeping. Run out and buy yourself some ear plugs, a sleep mask, and maybe a sound conditioner, and then come back and thank me after you have the best sleep of your fucking life.