Music is such a huge part of my life that I am rarely without it. Headphones have been my constant companion, from walking down the street with my Walkman in the 90’s to traveling with my bluetooth headset and iPhone today. I’m not one of those people who is oblivious to others while I’m listening to my music – I don’t wear them at times when my attention could be needed elsewhere; but if I’m on a walk by myself or sitting in the airport waiting for a flight, I will definitely be enjoying my alone time with musical accompaniment!

Having my headphones is a crucial part of traveling for me. Since I do a fair amount of international travel, I find that music is indispensable for not only passing the time, but helping me get sleep on 8-hour flights. It’s also so helpful to me if I am staying somewhere that’s noisy so that I can try to drown it out with something soothing. The most difficult part is trying to get comfortable with my headphones – tiny earbud headphones do not fit in my ears, quite literally; they fall right out when I try to put them in. Apparently, I have funny-shaped earlobes! 😉 So my headphones of choice are these giant ones, which have great sound but aren’t easy to lay down with. As you can imagine, it’s not comfortable to lay on my side with these big headphones, and if I wear them to bed I inevitably wake up in the middle of the night. So when I heard that there were a new type of headphones designed to address this exact problem, I absolutely had to have them!

SleepPhones are a fleece headband that contains two little speakers and can connect to most music players. They were designed by a doctor who dealt with patients late at night and had the same problem I do with trying to get comfortable sleeping in headphones. I was really excited to see how these would feel! The plug doesn’t fit a first-generation iPhone (A common problem for the 3 of us who still own an iPhone 2G!) but fits my iPhone 3GS perfectly. The headband is super soft and cozy, and can be worn on the forehead or pulled down over your eyes. This is my very favorite, because not only does it double as a sleep mask, but I found the sound to be best when worn this way as well! For my first test of these, I simply set my Maroon 5 playlist on shuffle and got nice and cozy listening to my music at bedtime. I can lay on my side and be 100% comfortable. I love it!!

I can’t tell you how amazing this is going to be on my next long-haul flight. When I fly home to England, my goal is to get as much sleep as possible on the plane, since that helps me minimize jetlag. I have to have my headphones so that I can relax and block out the sound from the plane, so after takeoff you’ll see me immediately don my headphones, put on a sleeping mask, and pull up my hoodie if I’m wearing one. SleepPhones will take care of both blocking out sound AND light while being a hundred million times more comfortable than my other headphones, which will in turn make it easier to get into a more comfy position on the seat to sleep on. Oh, and because these are so small and foldable, they’ll be effortless to tuck into my purse, instead of fumbling around trying to shove my giant headphones in my over-stuffed bag like I usually do.

Not to mention, this will be amazing when I have a hard time sleeping at home due to noise, or just regular old insomnia; there have definitely been times when I’ve turned on my own private music to drown out noise from the road, dogs barking, and so on. SleepPhones are designed to help you relax without disturbing others – you know how you can detect a little bit of sound when someone else is wearing headphones? Well, I did notice that these seem to be a little less audible when I took them off and set them on the bed than my other headphones might. I can’t tell you how much less intrusive to others they are, because Jai could sleep through anything and wouldn’t notice a difference, I’m sure. 😉

As for the sound when you are wearing them, it’s great; like a little oasis of music. How clear the music is can depend on how you adjust the headband in order to get the speakers directly over your ears; you can wear it a variety of ways, depending on whether you really want to rock out or want the volume lower in order to drift off to sleep. And of course, music is just the beginning of what you could use with this – I’ve recently been trying to learn more about meditation, and a few months back I tried setting my laptop near the bed to listen to a guided meditation, which wasn’t the ideal setup. Clearly, something like SleepPhones would be perfect for that – they also have a free app with soothing songs and white noise which you can download to drown out the outside world.

This is one of those products that cleverly solves a problem and fills a need for people like me who are inseparable from their headsets. I’m really excited that something like this exists and I’m going to get a ton of use out of these. They would be great for music lovers, travelers, people living on a noisy street, sleep-deprived parents (They were created by a busy working mom!), people with a snoring spouse – the list goes on. You can pick up a pair for yourself by visiting SleepPhones.com – they currently retail for $39.95. Sweet dreams!