Sleeping
Strategies
Few things are as sweet as a good night’s sleep
and sleeping in a new location almost every night can make it elusive. What
follows are the strategies we’ve learned to improve our odds of sleeping well,
including:
Selecting the best location.
Creating more darkness.
Coping with too much noise.
Using sleep-inviting CD's.
Defeating mosquitoes.
Beating the heat.
Putting masking tape to work.
Remedying crummy mattresses.
Uses for sleeping bag liners.
Taking Benadryl for jet lag.
The Best Location
“Location, location, location” in sleep, just like in
real estate, is crucial. And picking a good location is equally important
whether spending the night indoors or out. If we are sleeping indoors and have
any choice at all, we look for an affordable place off the main street to
decrease the traffic noise. We also avoid rooms fronting on quaint cobblestone
streets, as the slightest traffic can be horribly noisy in the wee hours. And of
course, those little places over discos and bars are losers, as can be places on
pedestrian malls if there is any night life in the area.
Site selection when camping is also crucial. In packed
European campgrounds, it is often better to settle into a crowded area where you
can select your neighbors vs setting up in a more open area that might fill-in
with a partying crowd. Also factor in the proximity of overhead street lights
and other permanent lighting in common areas before unpacking the tent. And of
course, positioning away from the road and the toilets helps keep the noise
level down.
When the Lights Go Out
When the lights go out, you expect it to be dark, but it
isn’t always. Eye covers are the standard remedy when there is too much light
for sleeping, whether indoors or out. We always pack eye covers and use them on
overnight flights as well. Try yours out at home, as some aren’t comfortable
enough or don’t fit closely enough around the edges to do the job. I also found
that I had to practice wearing them, as at first I couldn’t tolerate them for
even an hour at a time. And it helps to have become accustomed to them before
they are really needed.
The 4 little clips under the eye covers in the photo below
are clothes-pin like clips we picked-up in Europe. They are designed for hanging
kitchen towels but we nabbed them because of their small size. We use them both
for laundry and for nipping closed hotel curtains that don’t quite overlap at
the center. These little clips are strong enough and open wide enough to handle
even heavy drapes. If the gap in the curtains is the only light problem, we’d
much rather use the clips on the curtains than wear eye covers all night.
After site selection, the second line of defense against
brightness when camping abroad is an extra ground cloth to throw over the tent
top. European camp grounds tend to be so bright that we rarely use our
flashlights at night, inside the tent or out. And we often used the extra cloth
over the tent to help darken it inside. Unlike European tents, US tents tend to
be constructed from light colored fabrics and have little windows for peaking
out, both of which allow additional light to stream in.
Blissful Silence
Ear plugs, like eye covers, are a standard traveler’s
item for a good night’s sleep. Though they help blunt the noise at internet
shops, I don’t find them very useful for sleeping. For me, they don’t block
enough noise to compensate for the annoyance factor of wearing them and I can
only wear them a short time. Unlike eye covers, my tolerance for ear plugs
hasn’t increased much with ‘training.’
So, in 2004 we put technology on our side: Bill downloaded a
white noise generator (Atmosphere Deluxe) onto our laptop to rescue our night’s sleep in noisy hotel
rooms. I teased him that I didn’t want the sound of bubbling brooks but of HVAC
(ventilation systems) as there is nothing like the well-moderated hum of a
ventilation fan to help me sleep. But the babbling stream does the job—it fills
in the moments of quiet so that the intervals of noise don’t jolt me from my
slumber, whether it’s street noise or the TV next door. We don’t try to mask all
of the outside noise, just to even them out with the background noise of our
choosing.
Inviting the Sandman Over
In 2006 we added 3 CD's to our arsenal, hoping to coax the Sandman to visit
us sooner rather than later. The first 2 are guided visualizations that both
have some annoying qualities about them and yet definitely help us fall asleep
sooner. The third is only music with no vocal guidance and seems equally
effective. Our selections were:
"A Meditation To Help You With Healthful Sleep" by Belleruth
Naparstek" from Health Journeys
"Deep 10 Relaxation" by Mind Food of the Monroe Institute
"Brainwave Suite Delta" by Dr. Jeffery Thompson
As the months progressed, we came to love Belleruth's CD and
use it almost every night. It totally changed our sleep patterns and eliminated
that nasty habit of abruptly awakening at 3 or 4 am. We highly recommend it,
though know that it may take a month or 2 for it to work its magic.
Mosquitoes
We affectionately call the little green gizmo in the
center of the above picture “The Bugger.” It plugs into an electrical outlet and
the replaceable chemical tablet it holds slowly releases noxious chemicals into
the air. I don’t know if it kills the mosquitoes or repels them, but they stop
biting about 10 minutes after we plug it in.
We of course worry about what those noxious chemicals are
doing to us and only use it as a last resort. We weigh the risk of the chemicals
against the risk of getting hit by car in traffic because we didn’t sleep the
night before and gratefully plug-in the bugger when we need it. We have found
that ½ tablet will cover us for 2 nights, instead of the recommended full tablet
per night. We try to minimize the number of hours we use it at a time and plug
it in as far away from our heads as possible to keep the inhaled dose lower. And
you just never know when mosquitoes will be a problem. At 4 am Bill dug out the
bugger while we were in a high-rise Paris hotel in May one year.
When camping, we resort to using a DEET repellent on our skin
and keep the tent zipped closed. Fortunately, we haven’t been anywhere where
the mosquitoes were unbearable.
Beating the Heat
Aluminum foil is the latest addition to our arsenal of
sleep aids, though we don’t carry it routinely. We checked into our Paris hotel
during an unseasonably warm spell and our south facing room was a hot-box as the
promised air conditioning never materialized. We opted to obscure our view of
the Eiffel tower by covering the window with foil. It did an impressive job of
minimizing the solar gain in our room each day of our week-long stay. When the
sun went down, we’d peel it up half way to enjoy the view and allow a little
heat loss through the glass at night. We attached the foil to the glass with
masking tape, which we also carry as a sleep aid.
For extreme heat when camping, we resorted to a small,
battery operated fan to hang from the peak of the tent. When the biting bugs and
the brightness of the campground forced us in the tent but deprived us of the
few breezes, the fan helped out.
Masking Tape as a Sleep Aid?
There are books written on the glories and uses of duct
tape, but masking tape has its place too as a traveler’s aid. Masking tape does
a better job with stealthy hotel room modifications as its low-tack quality
(minimal adhesion) reduces the risk of damaging room and jamb finishes—duct tape
would take some paint jobs down to bare wood.
In Paris, it was masking tape that held the
sunlight-reflecting foil covering our hotel window. But we had the tape on hand
for isolating us from cigarette smoke. Even if you manage to snare a no-smoking
room, it doesn’t guarantee a smoke free room. I’ve stuffed blankets and plastic
bags around the edges of doors to keep the smoke out, but tape is easier to use
and more certain. Inspect the paint or finish on both the door and door jamb
before taping as you risk pulling off a poor finish when you remove the tape. I
just barely press the masking tape in place to minimize the adhesion and very
carefully remove it in the morning.
Tape is also useful in combating mosquitoes if you don’t have
or don’t want to use a bugger. Taping closed gaps around the door, tears in
window screens or even gaps between the wall and the window jamb in low-budget
accommodations will reduce the numbers of biting bugs flying in.
Those Crummy Mattresses
Getting twin beds instead of a double or ‘matrimonial’
bed is a huge help if the mattresses are saggy or lumpy. We’ve become bolder at
giving mattresses a quick feel or even lying down on them when we first get the
room or when looking at it. If it’s a double and doesn’t make the grade, we ask
for a room with twins. In some countries, twins are generally all that are
available.
Putting a saggy mattress on the floor can help, though most
European rooms lack the floor space for that to be an option. And before we go
to that trouble, we first take a look underneath the bed: if the mattress is
already on a firm platform, moving it to the floor won’t help.
I often use an extra blanket, part of the bedspread, a towel
or article of clothing to fill in low spots on mattress for a better night’s
sleep. And some European mattresses feel like they have a 4” metal or cord grid
near the surface that is sometimes too prominent for my ribs. Even a fairly thin
bit of padding under the sheet in my rib cage area will immensely improve my
comfort in mattresses with too much topography.
Sleeping Bag Liners
I probably wouldn’t carry a sleeping bag liner for a trip
of several weeks, but we use ours often enough on extended tours to be worth
carrying, even if we aren’t camping. I’m fond of the knit CoolMax liners made by
“Cocoon.” They stuff down to about the size of a large canned beverage. We sleep
inside ours: if we aren’t comfortable with the freshness of the sheets; if we
feel too sweaty on top of a plastic mattress cover; for extra warmth if the
blankets are insufficient; if the bed only has a duvet (comforter) and it’s too
warm to use it; and if it is miserably hot at night, the liner gives some relief
by wicking the sweat away. They also qualify as the needed sheet for use in some
hostels. When camping, we also use the liners to keep our sleeping bags fresher
and for greater temperature control.
Benadryl for Jet Lag
The tiny pink tablets in the photo are Benadryl, an
over-the-counter antihistamine. We take them at bedtime for about a week after
flying as a mild sleep aid to cope with the sleep deprivation associated with
jet lag. Benadryl doesn't knock us out, but instead is a little nudge in the
drowsy-direction. It seems to be just enough to help us fall asleep at our new
bedtime without leaving any side effects in its wake. We have found that getting
enough sleep is more important for our jet lag recovery than trying to reset our
biologic clocks with melatonin or sunlight exposure.
Those are all the tricks up our sleeves for getting a good
night’s sleep on the road. We’d love to hear your remedies for less than ideal
sleeping situations.