Not for the first time, I find myself reassured by an article from Aftermath, this time on the subject of falling asleep to Let's Plays, which is something my wife and I do on the daily. Nightly. Whatever.
Anyway, I knew that falling asleep to some sort of "noise" was becoming increasingly widespread for various reasons — not least of which being the huge ball of anxiety pretty much all of us appear to be carrying around inside our respective heads at all times these days — but I wasn't sure how common specifically using Let's Plays was. I especially wasn't sure about the use of Game Grumps, one of our shows of choice.
But, according to the article, it seems that it's not only common (right down to using Game Grumps!) but that there might actually be a certain amount of value to it. And that's an actual neurologist saying that.
I never used to "need" noise to get to sleep, and I'm not sure I really do now. But my wife Andie finds it difficult to deal with complete silence, particularly in the dead of night, and so we've both fallen into the habit of having something playing when we are ready to go to sleep. Most of the time, it is either the aforementioned Game Grumps — or my own videos, which, as it turns out, are pleasantly relaxing to listen to.
In fact, I'll be honest here — and I'm aware that this may well make me sound much more narcissistic than I actually am — I find my own videos to be the absolute best thing to help me get to sleep. I think it's because I'm already so familiar with all of them — both from having made them, and from having listened to each of them many times each at this point — that they strike a good balance between making enough noise to distract me from Thinking Bad Thoughts, and from not engaging me enough to want to pay attention to them. The trouble I occasionally have with Game Grumps is that I enjoy listening to them so much — particularly if it's a series I haven't watched or listened to before — that I end up paying attention to them rather than concentrating on getting to sleep.
I don't know if I'm a textbook "insomniac" as such, but I've always found it difficult to get to sleep. I get stuck in a sort of loop where I lie down and close my eyes, then my brain suddenly pipes up and goes "you don't actually know how to make yourself go to sleep, do you?" I then spend ages thinking "I really want to go to sleep, I wish I could go to sleep right now", but the act of thinking those things means that my brain is not shutting down and actually going to sleep. This can go on for hours at a time, particularly if the room is silent.
And that's where the Let's Plays help. If there's some noise on, my brain can latch onto that, and it doesn't get caught in that self-destructive cycle. It has to be the right kind of noise, though; I've found that music doesn't tend to work, and neither does simple, straightforward white noise (and/or its variously "coloured" relatives). But talking does, particularly if it's about something I find relaxing, familiar and comforting.
And so that's how we typically fall asleep: either to Danny from Game Grumps playing King's Quest IV or Space Quest for the umpteenth time… or to me playing old Atari games (including, on occasion, King's Quest and Space Quest games).
I'm reassured to learn that this isn't "a weird thing that we do"; it's a thing that seemingly is quite widespread.
Now, I just need to decide what's on the playlist for tonight…
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.