Ever since I started high school, sleep is one of the lowest items on my priority list. 

Each night I tell my Echo Dot to set an alarm for the next morning, hearing her state that I have only five or so hours to rest. Her monotone voice drops dread into the pit of my stomach; I should’ve done my homework faster. After long days of school, homework, and, occasionally, dance, time to rest is whittled down to a mere few hours. And, even then, the lingering stress from the day forces my fast-paced mind to never slow. Sleep becomes something that I have to beg for, rather than fall into effortlessly. 

On nights where the minutes turn to hours of restless tossing and turning, I search for something to put my racing mind at ease. Some days, reading a comforting book will suffice, while others require the welcoming melodies of my favorite band, One Direction. There are some instances, though, where even the boys won’t lull me to sleep. In those cases, I turn to Otis Gray—the host of the podcast, Sleepy. 

During each episode, he reads excerpts from old books to help all of his listeners fall asleep. His deep, gravelly voice lulls me into the place between sleep and wakefulness within a few minutes. He brings me to a place where my eyes become too heavy to keep open, where my mind begins to wander through the clouds. The blacks of my closed eyelids swirl with his indigo voice and mix into a perfect recipe for sleep. 

His typical episode ends around the thirty-minute mark, although some hover closer to an hour, but his most recent episode was a three-hour installment of Greek myths. His hypnotizing voice—coupled with my secret guilty pleasure regarding the topic—resulted in a calm state of mind and allowed me to drift off to sleep with barely any effort at all.  

To be honest, I can’t recall what it was about; within no time, the only words I could pick up while winning the battle against insomnia were, “Quicksilver” and “Pegasus.” I think that says a lot about the podcast since it’s supposed to help people who may struggle with insomnia or a wandering mind to fall asleep. 

The best thing about this three-hour podcast is the fact that I didn’t get startled after it finished. 

Usually, when it comes to sleep, it comes in waves; at least within the first forty minutes or so. I sleep significantly lightly, and wake up if anyone passes my room to use the bathroom in the night. However, after forty minutes of enjoying the podcast, I am able to sleep while the house experiences earthquake-like bouts of thunder. If I am drifting off to sleep in a place where noise is abundant or subtle, as soon as it goes silent, I wake up as if I was falling off a cliff in a dream. With the length of his latest episode, I am able to successfully fall asleep—and stay asleep—after the podcast ends. 

Sometimes, I look forward to the nights where insomnia rears its ugly head so I can fight it off with the Sleepy podcast.