My Go-To Sleep Aid

I had a bad nightmare last night.  In the dream, I was in a small room and knew that someone was coming back shortly to kill me.  When I woke up, it was dark out.  My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t shake the terror of the dream.  I knew I needed to calm myself down and go back to sleep, but it’s hard to reason yourself back into peaceful sleep after such a realistic nightmare. So, in my groggy state, I relied on the one thing that seems to calm me down: Frasier.

I’ll back up.  I started dating a fellow law student not long after I started my first year of law school.  When we broke up (for the first time) a few months later, I was upset and having trouble falling asleep at night, so my mom told me to start drinking a little sherry before bed. For the next week or so, I sipped sherry and watched Frasier before bed, and it calmed me down enough that I was able to fall asleep. 

Similarly, when I went through a John Grisham phase and freaked myself out by reading The Client too late at night, I calmed myself back down by watching Frasier. 

I think I started watching Frasier because it’s funny and captivating without being even slightly stressful.  Nothing that bad ever happens to Frasier.  His dad’s old recliner clashes with the rest of his furniture.  Niles purposefully needles him about his life choices, including his decision to have a radio show instead of seeing patients. Daphne irritates him by talking too much early in the morning or trying to predict the future. Eddie stares at him. If we’re lucky, Frasier’s ex-wife Lilith shows up in a turtleneck and makes terse critiques about Frasier’s parenting skills or the advice he provides to his call-in patients.  That’s about it. I have never lay awake wondering what will happen to Frasier in the next episode.  It’s the perfect sleep aid. 

So last night, when I needed a sleep aid after my nightmare, I turned to Frasier.  However, to be clear, I did not watch Frasier.  My husband was asleep and I didn’t want to wake him, so I never turned on my television.  Instead, I just pictured Frasier standing in his Seattle apartment and talking to no one in particular. It was a whole new level of Frasier relaxation.  I meditated on the image of Frasier speaking about red wine or the opera, and my heartbeat slowed.

Is this something I could monetize? Should I be teaching others how to meditate out of their own problems and into Frasier’s ordered life?

If Frasier isn’t for everyone, I have a second option.  Frasier calms me down when I am scared or highly emotional.  If, on the other hand, I am anxious about work, money, or my baby, I focus on an object that bring me nothing but pleasure: spaghetti and meat sauce. 

Sometimes I think about how to make a delicious meat sauce, and whether there’s an ingredient I haven’t tried yet.  Other times, I just focus on an image of the finished dish.  If it makes me hungry, I make a mental note to cook it the next day, which I rarely end up doing because I don’t have the ingredients on hand and it uses a lot of dishes that I don’t want to wash. 

I suggest you give it a try.  Scared? Think about Frasier. Anxious? Think about spaghetti and meat sauce. You’re welcome.