My mother likes to bring up that I used to be a heavy sleeper—a good sleeper—when I was young.

“All of your bad habits started forming during middle school,” she scolds me. 

While I don’t reply, letting her continue with the childhood stories, a part of me still remembers. I think back to elementary school and the first few years of middle school. Though scarce in details, I remember that after a long day outside on the swings or playing four square with friends, when my head hit the pillow at night, I would fall asleep within minutes, even faster if I had eaten a heavy meal just an hour ago. 

Yet, starting at the beginning of high school, my time spent in bed grew longer while my ability to fall asleep weakened. Time began stretching, yawning awake, to over 30 minutes. The more I forced myself to close my eyes, to slow down my breathing, and to remain nestled within the layered covers, the more redundant my motions felt. My body began to rebel even against myself. 

I started to blame my surrounding conditions—the occasional rumbling of cars in my suburban neighborhood, my brother rustling around the bathroom at night, even the implications that it was time to rest irritated me, not being able to gain autonomy over my own time. 

My mother likes to tell the same story about how I used to be a heavy sleeper: 

One time, close to midnight, she heard a large thump sound from my room. Panicking, she ran across the hall and opened the bedroom door. Seeing that I was missing from bed, she rushed further in. Scurrying to the side, my mother found me asleep on the carpeted floor, my head inches away from the trash can. The bedroom remained eerily silent, except for my rhythmic snores. I had fallen off the bed, failing to wake up even from the four-inch drop. Looking back now, I’m not sure how accurate the details are, whether they were exaggerated in contrast to the light sleeper I’ve become. 

It seems that no matter how tired I am at night, as my eyes drift between open and closed, as I turn off the light, turn on some light music for sleep, and slip on my eye mask to block out any light, I instantly become nocturnal. 

My concentration sharpens, ears becoming more sensitive to sound. Instead of the warm, cozy feeling from before, my sheets suddenly feel heavy, tightening around my legs. My face, resting comfortably against a pillow, now feels overwhelmingly stuffy. 

 For all the preparation I do each night, my attempts to train myself to sleep, there is nothing but waiting time, and I am left awake with the lingering thoughts of the day.

I’ve tried more than one strategy over the years. In high school, right before bed, I would alternate between drinking two steaming hot cups of whole milk and running at full speed on the treadmill. From there, I would quickly run up the stairs back to my bedroom, hoping that my body would take in the sudden tiredness and fall into immediate sleep. Yet, the attempts had a counter-effect, instead leading me to run to the restroom for a shower. 

I resorted to listening to music while trying to fall asleep, trying out lullabies for newborns, melancholy mixes, light jazz for fast sleep, white noise, brown noise. Unexpectedly, I found myself drawn most to podcasts—the sound of human noise and interaction brought me comfort. Listening to both familiar and new conversation topics, loud and quick exchanges between the hosts seemed to redirect my restlessness, allowing my heart rate to slow, and for my eyes to fall closed. While the voices continued running along my ears, the conversations fading in and out, my eyes came to rest, my mouth slightly open, a little drool forming. As I tuned in to the lively banter, the podcast in turn tuned out the other noises around me—dialing in and out, in and out. 

I think I had it all wrong. Perhaps what I need the most at night isn’t silence, but an acceptance—an embrace—of the sounds around me. I used to blame the clamors happening outside in the hallways of the dorm or the flashing lights circling outside, where not even the eye mask blocked out the distractions. 

While my roommate and I have distinct sleeping schedules, I find that when I move to sleep, going through the motions as usual, she, too, turns off the lamp. Her slow breathing, her very presence calms me down, balancing out my own churning thoughts. I listen to her tiny pencil scrawl across her journal. She moves lightly—a dainty, caressing dance around the room. The thought alone of knowing she’s feet away, sharing the space in the dimly lit room, is what eventually brings me to sleep. 

Each day, I’m learning to embrace the noise. My prior refusal to accept the natural noises around me—the murmured voices, music playing in the bathroom, the last few words I hear before I fall asleep—now work in unity. Keeping these reminders in mind, hopefully, each night gets easier, each sleep gets heavier.