Home Lifestyle We All Suck at Sleeping. These Gift-Worthy Products Make You Suck Less

Lifestyle

We All Suck at Sleeping. These Gifts Make You Suck Less

The bible of sleep, a hot sleeper's dream, an Amazon innovation, and more sleep-improving tools to gift this year.

For those who struggle with sleep, the supposedly cozy moment when you crawl into bed isn’t all that great. Difficulty sleeping breeds anxiety about sleeping, which of course makes the whole thing even more difficult.

Why do you get so hot when you sleep? Should I switch from sleeping on my stomach to my back? Are those beers keeping me up? Is it hot showers that help you sleep—or, wait, I thought it was cold? The reality of sleep deficiency is often more complex than this. The best thing you can do is eliminate variables, which is exactly what this gang of sleep-improving products aims to do. From no-music-allowed earbuds to the most aggressive bed-cooling tool on the market, these are the products to gift the sleepiest people you know (ahem, new parents).

9 Gifts for That Friend Who Won’t Stop Texting Their Wordle Score

The Absolute Best Gifts to Give Someone Trying to Live Their Most Fit Life in 2023

The Best Gifts for Bad Sleepers

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

Before you consider any sleep aids—ear plugs, eye masks, cooling apparatuses, etc.—it might be worthwhile to educate a person on how sleep actually works. There are numerous books on the subject, but the starting point is Dr. Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep.

It's incredibly informative and written in a way that's easy to understand for just about anyone. It's also pretty funny at times. After reading, one thing becomes crystal clear: the hours you spend asleep are perhaps even more important than the ones you spend awake.

Scribner

$14

SHOP

at Amazon

Bose Sleepbuds

Of the three primary stimulus that keep a person awake—temperature, light, and sound—sound is probably given the least thought. Oh, it's quiet in a room when I'm falling asleep, surely that means noise isn't what's waking me up at 2 a.m.?

The reality: you can't know. Whether it's a noisy highway or simply your A/C kicking on at the same time in the middle of the night, noise affects every sleeping person differently. Bose's Sleepbuds are for those it really affects. They block sound and play subtle, custom-made relaxation sounds. They do not—do not—stream music from your phone, so you can't get sucked into a podcast and have your sleep aide become a sleep problem. They also don't stream sounds at all; all sounds are stored locally on the earbuds so battery use is low.

Sleepbuds

Bose

$249

SHOP

Snooz Smart White Noise Machine

And if you can't bear the thought of sleeping with earbuds in, you get a white noise machine. We like Snooz's smart option for a few reasons.

One, it's a white noise machine, not a white noise playback machine. This means it's literally creating pleasant ceiling fan sounds within the device, not playing a recording of a ceiling fan. This is important because auditory repetition and patterns can be distracting when trying to coax the brain into sleep mode. We also really like the companion app and the fact that there's a nursery mode for use when a baby's in the room.

Smart White Noise Machine

Snooz

$99

SHOP

Chilisleep Ooler

Bizarre brand and product name aside, the Ooler is one of the most direct ways a person can address a hot sleeping problem.

At its core it's a two-piece bed-cooling system. A small tank filled with water runs a hose up to what amounts to a very thin mattress pad. The pad is full of veins that the tank pumps cooled water through while you sleep. It's as simple as that, and there really isn't a mattress or cooling blanket that will keep a person as cool as the Ooler does.

In our review, we also noted that you can control it remotely with your phone, which is nice when you want a nice chilly bed to slip into on your way home from a night out.

Ooler

Chilisleep

$600

SHOP

at Amazon

10 Habits Practically Guaranteed To Help You Sleep Better Tonight

How Much Time Should You Spend in Deep Sleep? Experts Say This.

Gravity Blanket Weighted Sleep Mask

Sleep masks are designed to eliminate light as a factor in keeping you awake. Weighted sleep masks are designed to scratch through anxiety as well.

Gravity Blanket's take on it spreads one pound evenly across your face, but avoids the eyeball region for, well, obvious reasons. It's also highly adjustable, so big-headed and tiny-headed users can feel the subtle hug of the sleep mask without straining the fabric.

Weighted Sleep Mask

Gravity Blanket

$34

SHOP

at Amazon

Medterra Sleep Tight Gummies

It's easy for the sleep élite to frown on sleep supplements like Medterra's CBD and melatonin gummy, but they're not the ones suffering day-in and day-out with the ramifications of poor sleep, are they?

The Sleep Tight gummies bring classic sleep aides like chamomile, lemon, and passionflower together with the not-so-traditional aides like CBD, melatonin, and, uniquely, a nice amount of L-Theanine. At $46 for a 30-pack, it rounds out to about $1.50 a day. That's not a terrible price to pay in order to feel better all day long.

Sleep Tight Gummies

Medterra

$46

SHOP

at Medterra

Amazon Halo Rise

This is cheating a bit, but we're preemptively calling Amazon's soon-to-release Halo Rise the most interesting new sleep product in quite some time.

What's unique about it: it's an alarm clock, sleep tracker, and sunlight simulator rolled into one. The lamp sits on your bedside table and uses a low-power radar to track you as you get in bed to go to sleep. It requires no wearables to work and does not monitor sound or video, either. The company says it can even tell the difference between you getting ready to sleep and simply scrolling your phone, or reading a book.

Then, as you approach wake-up tim, the sleep tracker becomes a light-based alarm clock. Simulating sunlight, it slowly lights up over the course of about half an hour to ease you out of sleep with zero jarring sounds.

Halo Rise

Amazon

$140

SHOP