Nap Aids (a.k.a. Sleeping PEDs) 3
BBC Shipping Forecast
We’ve written before about some tricks of the trade to ensure a restful daytime slumber, and as I mentioned yesterday, I recently learned of a new one courtesy of the New York Times’ “Letter of Recommendation” section.
The BBC owns and operates four national radio stations cleverly named 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 Live (bucking the trend a bit). BBC Radio 4 broadcasts mostly spoken word programs, including the not-so-cleverly-named Shipping Forecast, which dates back over 150 years and consists of four daily weather reports for the seas around the British Isles. Each forecast is only a minute or two long, but there are much longer compilations available on YouTube.
You might be asking yourself, “Self? Why am I reading about this on a napping blog?” Well, in “A Secret for Falling Asleep So Good It’s a British National Treasure,” Gracie Linden describes the program as “poetic and hypnotic” and cites it as a sleep aid, and I couldn’t agree more. In beautiful prose, she provides a history of the program, along with various references to it in pop culture, and was compelling enough that I decided to give it a shot.
I’m still feeling it out and haven’t had a ton of success losing consh to it — this may relate to the exercise regime I recently reignited (lots of “re” there…) — but I find it soothing and am confident it’s only a matter of time. See below for 5+ hours of Shipping Forecast — surely a helpful navigational tool for those tripping the nap fantastic!