If you’re like most Americans, you’ve experienced insomnia at some point in your life. If you’re one of the less lucky ones, you experience it quite often. And in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, few people are living totally insomnia-free lives. While it seems that everyone and their brother has a cure for insomnia, Calm.com recently conducted a survey on the Strangest Insomnia Cures. What made the top of the list? Rubbing dog’s earwax on your teeth. Seriously. We can’t make this stuff up. This cure comes from Gerolamo Cardano, a founder of Probability Theory, as well as a 15th century doctor and mathematician in Renaissance Italy. (We really don’t care what he discovered, that supposed cure is just gross.) “The search for an effective insomnia cure has been, in its own way, like a search for a sort of alternative Holy Grail. It traces back to the Romans, the ancient Egyptians, and, who knows, probably the Neanderthals,” says Alex Tew, co-founder of Calm.com. “We were fascinated—and sometimes horrified—to discover some of the lengths that folks have gone to through the ages to find a cure.” Yeah, well putting my dog’s earwax on my teeth did it for me—grossed me out, not cured my insomnia. I’d rather stay awake. But as they say in infomercials, “But wait! There’s more!” The second strangest? Eating sea slug entrails before bed. I don’t care if it’s a Japanese folk remedy, it’s pretty disgusting. Third? Drinking a potion containing the bile of a castrated boar. Blech. But then there’s fourth place: rubbing dormouse/field mouse fat on the soles of your feet. “Most of these bygone cures strike us now as bizarre—sometimes ingenious, but often repulsive,” says Tew. Yep. I would heartily agree. “While some are riskier or more repulsive than others, most come firmly under the heading of ‘Don’t try this at home,’” says Tew. Here are the other “cures,” in order:
Lathering your hair in yellow soap. (I have a feeling that this “yellow soap” was made of something particularly disgusting that was supposed to put you to sleep. Like boar’s urine or something.)Eating fried lettuce before bed. (Um, there are a lot of fried foods I might eat at night, but lettuce wouldn’t be one of them.)Drinking a brew of lettuce opium. (Yeah, I got nothin’. I think this goes under “Don’t try this at home.”)Eating an onion before bed. (Well, even if you don’t sleep, at least it will be quiet because no one will want to be around you.)Pointing your bed northwards. (Seriously? Now I have to buy a compass to get some sleep?)Watching a video of a crossword puzzle tournament. (I totally get this one! That would be boring enough to put me to sleep!)Curling and uncurling your toes. (This is actually a real action suggested for anxiety relief—except you tense up all your muscles and release them. I could see this working.)Drinking cinnamon and banana in tea. (Sorry, again this is gross to me. But it’s easier to get than boar’s bile. Gag.)
Calm.com has launched its own sleep aid that’s totally natural and makes me laugh—they are Sleep Stories, which are bedtime stories for adults. Their most popular one is Ben Stein, using the monotone he became famous for in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, reading a long extract from The Wealth of Nations, a classic 18th century economics book written by Adam Smith, who is known as the father of economics. I’ll bet that would put you to sleep in no time. And it’s a lot safer than dog earwax, sea slug entrails and boar bile. Struggling with insomnia? Here’s what you need to know about melatonin.
Sources
Alex Tew, co-founder of Calm.comGerolamo Cardano, a founder of Probability Theory
