Audio Books as sleep aids

[jul2873]

I've been using audio books to fall asleep with for about ten years. I download them to my iPod, have soft ear buds that I'll put in just one ear (the side I'm not lying on), turn them on low, and, usually, just drift off. I find that, for me, books that are gently humorous, and have characters I like, are the best. Suspense books don't work for me; they keep me awake.

I'll do something that gives me a respite from the rls (warm bath, exercises etc.) and then lay right down with my iPod. I usually have a window of about an hour before the rls starts to act up again. Usually, that is plenty of time to fall asleep.

Some authors I have found good for helping me sleep are M.C.Beaton (or Marion Chesney), Georgette Heyer, and the Number One Ladies Detective Agency books. Books I like I can listen to over and over again.

I sometimes listen to music instead but the only music that really puts me to sleep are the old songs by Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, etc.

Anyone else listen to audio books or music? What works for you?

[majoraward]

Anyone else listen to audio books or music? What works for you?

Our library has thousands of audio books that can be downloaded for free to iPod, iPhone, and other types of players. My RLS became so bad eventually that I could not concentrate to listen to them anymore at home. I listen to audio books now by having my iPhone hooked up to the car radio and listen to them on the way to and from work. It allows me to concentrate on both listening to the books and driving.

My mother had every book that Agatha Christie ever wrote. She talked me into reading one years ago, I ended up reading them all I bet those would be easy to listen to on audio and they are "gently humorous" and have interesting characters, although probably a little dated nowadays.

Listening to hard rock-n-roll like the group AC/DC quiets my RLS and allows me to relax, it seems to work because it totally occupies my mind.

[badnights]

Words keep me awake. If I listen to music, I find myself listening to the words and can't sleep, unless they're in a language I can't understand. Even then, I wake up on the high frequency notes. Nowadays tho (since having bad WED), I can sometimes fall asleep listening to hard rock. I went thru a phase where I used "music" from a program called Neuroprogrammer, which creates mp3's of tones that are supposed to "entrain" the brain to certain frequencies that promote sleep. I still use it sometimes, but I realized while traveling that I sleep just as well (or poorly) without it.

What I do use is a white noise machine. These play continuous background noise to drown out the episodic short noises of your household or neighborhood. The machine I have lets me choose between waves on a beach, a running stream, some other nature themes, and the only one I can sleep to, which is white noise (like a generator would make, or some other motor running at a steady pitch).

[Polar Bear]

I use audio books to drift off to sleep. But this only works when my symptoms are calm and it is the insomnia that I am dealing with.

[badnights]

Jill Gunzel had a lot to say about using music to get through the RLS and into sleep.

[TimG]

Audiobooks or music help me to relax at bedtime. I also do Sudoku or Kenken puzzles to distract me. I also take pramipexole about an hour before bedtime.