Shock Me

So I’ve decided to treat my anxiety-driven insomnia with shock therapy.

Lately I’ve been wearing something called an Alpha-Stim cranial electrotherapy stimulator. It administers a tiny electrical current to my cranium through conductors clipped to my earlobes. The general idea behind cranial electrotherapy stimulation is that the current “evens out” the racing brain to alleviate the symptoms of anxiety, stress, depression and/or insomnia.

Frankly, I have no idea how it works or if it works at all, but I do know I've been getting much better sleep since I started wearing it for an hour a day. The irony of voluntarily shocking my brain while officing in a former psych ward isn't lost on me, either. I think most people just assume it's an iPod.

Whatever the Alpha-Stim is or isn’t doing, it’s probably safer than popping a bunch of Simply Sleep tabs night after night. You can only get an Alpha-Stim with a prescription in the U.S. and they’re not exactly cheap. I’m borrowing the one I’m wearing now and the FDA can confiscate it from me when they pry it off my cold, dead earlobes.