I've had my battles with insomnia over the years, and while nothing quite says "good night & sleep tight" like certain favored sleep aids, I'm intrigued by this blogger's report of a familiar alternative:
One sleepless night, dreading the midnight hour, I decided to research alternative therapies for soporific bliss. That’s when I discovered a neurological process known as brainwave entrainment. Using headphones, two audio streams are sent to a listener-one to the left ear, the other to the right (binaural)-the effect of which is that you can actually manipulate and change your mental state. In layman’s terms, throughout the day we go through several states of consciousness. For example, to fall asleep, you go from the waking (beta) state, through alpha and theta, to the sleep state (delta). Brainwave entrainment lets you access any of these states at will! Sounds very sci-fi, but I tested two technology-assisted sleep programs over the course of a month, using them to take naps and fall asleep at night, and the results where truly astonishing! Both programs work on Mac and PC platforms. These amazing audio programs may not wean everyone off Ambien, but they’re definitely worth trying out, and you can try them both for free.
Anyone tried something like this?
The author tests out 16 "gadgets" ranging from cds to sleep goggles.
The verdict: mostly bunk, although YMMV. I stil think those hypnosis and nature sound programs are fun, but I wouldn't bet on them if I had serious sleeping problems www.spiritmag.com/features/article/the_science_of_zzzzzzzs/
Anyway I know a lot of people in the "fuck I can't sleep till 3 am" situation, and am VERY happy to recommend a nice delta wave binaural beat. It's something I feel every doctor should be trying with a patient before drugs, because it's harmless! and who knows what those nifty drugs can do to our bodies..
Also very cool for getting into a deep meditative state, body abuzz as your start to float out of it.. Forever spread the word of binaural beats!