Too Bad You're Beautiful

Sleep seldom comes easy to me. I never had a healthy sleep schedule for as long as I can remember. As a child, I stayed awake at night to watch Futurama, Family Guy, and InuYasha (among other such programmes). This is a pattern that I maintained well into my adolescence as I opted to stay up to watch stuff on my phone and computer at night. Sadly, the foundations for dysfunctional adulthood had to come from somewhere. The shitty habits that I formed as a kid and as a teenager now haunt me well into my adulthood, where I'm still struggling to undo the damage that a decade and change of neglect have caused. Of course, this rant isn't supposed to highlight all of my dysfunctions; today's diatribe is all about my issues with sleeping.

The pandemic hasn't made things any easier. If anything, the constant paranoia and lockdowns have only aggravated my problems sleeping. After all, what's the point of maintaining a semi-consistent sleep schedule if I'm going to get laid off in a couple of months and collect unemployment regardless? As the world started to open up, I realised that this manner of thinking was fundamentally unsustainable. Sure, I could go back to working overnights at some godforsaken hellhole of a warehouse again and make really good money with mandatory overtime to boot. However, I always felt like I could do better than that. As the headlines of labour shortages kept piling up, I realised that I was in a reasonably leveraged position to negotiate my wages. Sooner or later, that opportunity would pass me by, and I'd be a fool to pass it up. I need to get onto a reasonable sleep schedule to capitalise on this labour shortage appropriately.

At the start of this month, I quit smoking pot altogether for many reasons. This isn't the journal entry to discuss that, but one of the reasons why I maintained my pot habit in the first place was because it's one of the few substances I could consistently take that helped me get some facsimile of sleep. Of course, relying on a substance to sleep is never the healthy option. I've tried melatonin gummies in college, and it was a bitch and a half to wean myself off of them. Similarly, ZzzQuil was another “non-habit forming” sleep aid that (anecdotally anyway) failed to live up to the marketing campaign. Please make no mistake: these substances weren't physiologically addictive to me; it was more psychological than anything else. I've tried “holistic remedies” like chamomile tea, hot milk, and so on, but they didn't do anything for me either; they didn't even give me the illusion that it was helping.

I thought all was lost until I came across an advertisement for the Calm app one night while I was doomscrolling through Instagram at 3 AM. I've certainly used the Calm app before, but that was when I was trying my hand at mindfulness meditations back in 2019 before letting the app sit on my phone and collect virtual dust. I always knew that Calm had sleep aids like bedtime stories, soundscapes, and guided sleep meditations. However, I never paid it much heed. In my jaded and cynical mind, the idea of a phone app helping me fall asleep seemed laughable. The reviews for the app also felt way too optimistic for my taste; after all, if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Little did I realise that “probably” doesn't necessarily equate to “always.”

I still have no idea what possessed me to try the Calm app again after all this time. Perhaps it was misguided hope, or maybe it was sheer morbid curiosity. Regardless, my insomnia wasn't going away any time soon, and nothing of substance was happening on any of the apps or websites I frequent. If nothing else, I could always get rid of the app if it didn't work for me. I already exhausted my free trial back in 2019, and I came out of it underwhelmed. I didn't have the money to shell out for a paid subscription that I'd most likely forget about until it auto-renewed on my credit card. This time, I had to make do with the free option. Surprisingly enough? The free option was quite robust. Sure, the overwhelming majority of sleep stories, soundscapes, and music were hidden behind the paywall but honestly? I still had plenty of options at my disposal. One story stuck out to me: The Kingdom in the Sky, as narrated by Idris Elba.

Okay, now you have my attention. Idris Elba is genuinely one of my all-time favourite actors/celebrities. I never would've expected to see him on an app like this. I fired up the sleep story, jacked my phone's volume up to 50% so that I could hear the tale properly while trying to sleep on my side, and began to listen to it intently. Funnily enough, I've always adored the sound of Elba's voice, but I never realised just how good a narrator he is until now. I can't tell you a single thing about the story whatsoever beyond it taking place in South Africa (or some other neighbouring country). I will say this: Elba's delivery was fucking immaculate. Within 5 minutes, I felt my eyes metaphorically glued shut. Within 10 minutes, I felt my lips sealed as I was starting to drift off. The next thing I knew, I was awake at 09:00; not necessarily “rejuvenated,” but I still felt better waking up this time around than I usually do.

I'm still dumbfounded about this happening. I started writing this journal entry at 10:00 AM, and it's almost noon as I'm writing these last few sentences. I don't necessarily think I'll be making a habit of using Calm to fall asleep regularly, but I will concede that looks are deceiving. My initial experience with apps like Calm and Headspace was relatively lukewarm, so I assumed that mindfulness apps weren't for me. Honestly, I'm glad that I still kept Calm around on my phone despite making it a point to get rid of Headspace. Still, I'm not too fond of Tamara Leavitt's voice, so I don't think I'll be doing guided meditations any time soon. Regardless of my hangups with mindfulness, the sleep side of Calm is undoubtedly worth investigating. Perhaps I'll fall asleep to one of Erik Braa's stories this time around (assuming that they're not behind the paywall). You win this time, App Store!