Sleep headphones: AcousticSheep SleepPhones
I’m one of those people that has a hard time sleeping due mostly to “busy brain.”
You know how it goes. You’ve been busy all day, you’re exhausted, falling sleep on your feet, you finally get to bed and...
BOING!!!
Your brain kicks into overdrive.
Suddenly, sleep is the last thing you can manage as your brain tries to analyze your day, write articles or reports, rehashes moments of the past, or play out alternate scenarios, brings up all the things you didn’t finish doing today and all the things you need to do tomorrow...
All at the same time.
I’ve worked my way through a number of strategies to get myself to sleep, changing them as needed, depending on how severe my busy brain gets. Most of them involve sound, and all involve my smart phone.
Since there are other people in my household, that means wearing a headset of some kind. Plus, since some involve binaural beats, which use different frequencies for each ear, that requires decent quality speakers.
For the longest time, I used the ear buds that came with my phone. Those are not good to sleep with, and would start to hurt my ear canals. Plus, I could still hear things like street noise and my husband’s CPAP.
Then I tried my husband’s noise cancellation headset. Those worked well, but again, not for sleeping with.
I only sleep on my sides, so whatever I used had to comfortable when pressed against a pillow.
That’s when my darling husband discovered sleep headphones.
What a difference they made!
There are a number of them available on the market. I will write about them in different posts.
First, the ones I have now.
AcousticSheep SleepPhones Classic Sleep Headphones (Lavender, Medium - One Size Fits Most)
The good stuff: Described as “pajamas for your ears”, the headband is comfortable and soft. The speakers are flat and there is no discomfort from them while lying on my side.
The speakers can be removed so that the headband can be washed. It is washer and drier safe, and made of recycled materials.
The sound is quite decent quality. It was a huge improvement from anything I used in the past.
There is a link that comes with them where you can download sleep inducing audio files for free.
The not-so-good stuff: There are a couple of issues I’ve found with this.
The first is, heat. The packaging actually describes them as cooling, which I found quite strange. The headband is made of the same sort of material that is used for blankets and light weight coats. They can get uncomfortably warm in the summer heat. Which is actually a bonus in the winter.
The other issue I’ve found is getting the speakers to line up with both ears at the same time. Especially after I took them out for washing. If a speaker is not lined up just right with your ear, you can’t hear a thing. This is actually a good thing, since it means no one else can hear what you’re listening to, but it does make getting them properly lined up with your ear extremely important.
The final thing is related to lining the speakers up properly. The photos show it as being worn as a head band. I don’t know if my ears are unusually low, but if I’ve got it over my forehead like that, the speakers are above my ears. So I usually end up wearing it over my eyes. Which is great, if keeping light out is an issue. Nothing wrong with that. Except for that other issue; heat. It can get really warm under there, and sweaty eye lids are not conducive to sleep.
So while I like these sleep headphones quite a lot, and I use them pretty much every night, they do have their minor flaws.
My next posts about sleep phones will be about other styles I’ve been looking at to pick up in the future.
