I used to think I couldn’t sleep without my fan. Its steady hum was my nightly lullaby, drowning out the world so I could drift off. But when I read that sleeping with a fan could be bad for my health, I panicked. Dry throat? Allergies? Asthma? Was my comfort actually hurting me?
I tried sleeping without it. Big mistake.
The silence was unbearable. My thoughts spiraled—work stress, family drama, the weird text I’d sent my ex at 2 AM last month (why did I do that?). By midnight, I was wide-eyed and frustrated. The fan went back on.
But the article stuck with me. Was I really that dependent on a machine to sleep?
My friend Saira, who’d been struggling with insomnia, suggested something unexpected: maybe the fan wasn’t the problem. Maybe it was a band-aid for something deeper.
That night, I recorded myself sleeping. No coughing, no snoring—just me, whispering apologies to no one. It creeped me out. Who was I talking to?
Then it clicked. My dad.
He died five years ago, and the house had never felt the same. The fan wasn’t just about noise; it was about filling the emptiness he left behind.
So I did something scary: I unplugged the fan for good.
The first few nights were rough. I journaled instead, writing letters to my dad, to myself, to people I’d hurt. Slowly, the silence became less terrifying.
Then, out of nowhere, an old friend of my dad’s reached out. He had letters—ones my dad wrote but never sent. Reading them felt like a conversation I’d been waiting for my whole life.
Now, I sleep in silence. And for the first time in years, I wake up feeling rested.
Sometimes, the things we rely on to sleep aren’t just about comfort. They’re about what we’re trying to avoid. And facing that? That’s where real rest begins.
