Category: Bazaar News

Shut-eye can be hard to come by for many of us these days, and for those really struggling with insomnia, the lack of sleep can leave them stuck in an endless cycle of exhaustion. With the holidays coming up, now’s a great time to consider getting those folks in your life a gift that may help them reduce the time they spend staring at the ceiling each night. 

Instead of scrolling mindlessly through Amazon or perusing kitschy gifts on Etsy on a whim, consider something functional that can help them make something about their lives easier. After all, holiday shopping seems to get more and more difficult each year, and you don’t want to waste money on something your recipient isn’t going to be able to put to good use. So for everybody who has difficulty settling down each night, here are 12 gift ideas that’ll support a better night’s rest.

Your gift recipient can massage Alo’s magnesium reset spray into their aching muscles to help release tension and minimize fatigue, setting them up for an easier slumber. This soothing spray, which is packed with magnesium, valerian, arnica, and aromatherapy oils, helps support a greater sense of calm. Made cruelty-free in the USA, the magnesium spray also contains amla, a natural antioxidant, as well as other nourishing ingredients to nourish skin. 

Buy it: Anthropologie

Although some brands claim that properly weighted blankets help relieve anxiety, there’s not a whole lot of evidence as to why. It may have to do with the way they mimic pressure massages, or resemble the feeling of being safely swaddled as a child—kind of like the ThunderShirt, which uses pressure to help calm dogs down during storms or other scary situations. 

If a person has difficulty falling asleep each night, a weighted blanket may prove helpful in lulling them to sleep through the added pressure and comforting warmth it provides. This particular blanket is available in four different weight/size combinations across nine different colors, making it easy to find the best level of relief while also matching the room it will be accessorizing, making it a surefire hit even for those who don’t feel that anxiety is the root of their insomnia.  

Buy it: Amazon

Inspired by a lightly scented breeze, this spray helps create a comfortable atmosphere using essential oils and other natural scents. Your giftee can spritz it on their pillow or sheets and cocoon themselves in the inviting aura of lavender and sweet orange. Pro tip: This is also useful if you know they’ve been putting off washing their sheets.   

Buy it: L’Occitane

Heat is another helpful source of muscle relaxation and pain relief. With this oversized heating pad, even an adult can soothe a large part of the back—or wherever else they might have muscle discomfort—all at once, and toast themselves to perfection while settling down to rest each night.

Buy it: Amazon

For those who just can’t seem to get rid of the tension in their bodies even after laying down in the dark, this at-home, acupuncture-inspired mat is perfect for helping to release those stiff and sore muscles thanks to the thousands of built-in needles on the mat.

A person can hit the bulk of their back all at once when laying across it, and the pillow is curved just right to not only help the neck but to get a little deeper into those harder-to-hit spots behind their shoulder blades, under their arms, and behind their knees.  

Draping oneself across this so-called “bed of needles” may not seem like the picture of relaxation, but many reviewers say it works. And with nine colors and two sizes to choose from, it’ll be easy to pick just the right one. 

Buy it: Amazon

This sound machine comes programmed with 31 different sounds, from heartbeats to thunderstorms to the sound of a fan, to help distract from the quiet of the night or drown out those noisy neighbors. You can choose a model with or without a nightlight, but the color and brightness of the light are both just as customizable as the sound, meaning those who can’t sleep with a bright light on don’t need to worry.  

Both the light and sound have the power to remain on all night if needed, or you can choose just one or the other (or neither!) to last. Its small stature allows it to easily fit in anywhere in the room, and the powerful speaker allows it to carry from one corner to the other. 

Buy it: Amazon

Yes, scents really can make a difference! Whether you’re choosing scents based on their advertised properties or picking ones that bring the most comfort, a subtle diffusion can help someone get settled for bed.

This calming diffuser can help you wind down for the evening and prepare to fall asleep through the customization of essential oil combinations, as well as the ambient glow of choice, thanks to the adjustable brightness and color selection. 

Buy it: Amazon

This sunrise clock is almost like a two-in-one gift, not only helping those who struggle to fall asleep each night manage to do so with greater ease, but also making waking up a more pleasant experience with its dawn and dusk imitations. 

The sunset feature provides a gradually fading light for the duration of choice, which the brand claims may help trigger the body to produce melatonin and thus lead to natural drowsiness. It comes equipped with several soothing sounds, which can also be set to fade out as you fall asleep. 

To make the entire sleep process go more smoothly, the clock can be used to wake up more naturally in the morning with a slowly brightening light, letting a person start the day more alert and in a better mood than they probably would be in if they were suddenly jolted out of a deep sleep by a noisy alarm.

Buy it: Amazon

Sometimes the silence of the night is deafening. A Wi-Fi-linked speaker like the Google Nest Mini can help soften the silence with a little mindless noise when connected with a preferred music subscription or an audiobook, making it a little more customizable than your standard white noise machine. 

Nest Minis, which are available in four different colors, can also hook up with one another to play across the home simultaneously when someone is looking for something more than a subtle distraction. 

Buy it: Walmart

While the speaker is a nice companion piece for listening to audiobooks, it’s certainly not necessary; it’s just as easy to plug in a pair of headphones. Plus, with headphones in, nobody will be able to judge anyone for their taste in cheesy romance novels or true crime investigations.

For a limited time, you can get unlimited access to Audible’s catalog of podcasts, books, meditations, and designated sleep tracks, plus one credit each month to permanently add an audiobook to your library, starting at $6 a month. If you want to skip the monthly credit, the Audible Plus subscription rings in at just $8 a month. With thousands of titles available to stream, your recipient is sure to find something to help lull them to sleep each night. 

Buy it: Audible

What if you could just polish off an ice-cold beverage and drift to sleep? This cherry juice may help do just that; as a natural source of melatonin, Montmorency tart cherries are the perfect ingredient for an end-of-day drink of choice. It also contains valerian root, which comes from a perennial flowering plant native to Europe and parts of Asia, and is an ingredient long-believed to aid in sleep. 

Plus, as a recovery drink for athletes, adding this cherry juice to one’s daily menu could also help for reducing muscle soreness and inflammation. Just ask one of the hundreds of sports teams that have worked it into their regimens.

Buy it: Cheribundi

Have you ever been a little jealous of a baby in a sleep sack? (Because yeah, same.) This alternative to weighted blankets was inspired by the science behind Deep Touch Pressure Stimulation (DTPS), comforting whoever is wearing it and assisting in relaxation. The pod’s compression is similar to the feeling of being hugged, which can help somebody fall—and stay—asleep. It’s basically like spooning yourself! 

The Sleep Pod is backed by Shark Tank investors Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner and is available in three different styles, with the original version lacking a hood and opening for the wearer’s feet. It also comes in several different sizes to ensure a proper fit, is machine washable, and made in the USA.

Buy it: Hug Sleep

Before West Side Story, and Company, and Into the Woods, and all the other musicals that made Stephen Sondheim a titan of musical theater, he wrote Phinney’s Rainbow. 

It was, according to Sondheim’s website, “a satire on college life,” and therefore reflective of the setting in which Sondheim developed it in 1948: Massachusetts’s Williams College, where Sondheim was an 18-year-old sophomore and co-founder of the newly minted Cap and Bells drama society. Its title played on Finian’s Rainbow—the hit musical that had opened on Broadway the previous year—and also the name of Williams College president James Phinney Baxter III. 

As Meryle Secrest wrote in her biography Stephen Sondheim: A Life, the plot “centered around the efforts of Dogma Nu fraternity at Swindlehurst Prep to replace their compulsory [philanthropy] with more house parties, their motto being Strength Through Sex.” Sondheim drew heavily from the proceedings of an actual fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, much to the alarm of its members.

Phinney’s Rainbow was performed just four times in the spring of 1948—making it Cap and Bells’ first-ever musical—and has pretty much faded into obscurity for all but the most ardent Sondheim aficionados. According to NPR, only two recorded numbers ever reached the public: the overture from one of the original performances; and an instrumental version of the song “How Do I Know?”, recorded later that year and released on the 2005 album Sondheim Sings (Volume II, 1946-60). In short, there’s no original cast recording to stream on Spotify.

But one of those first four performances did get recorded in full. The circumstances are a mystery; Sondheim scholar Paul Salsini told NPR that it’s possible Sondheim recorded it himself at the urging of his mentor Oscar Hammerstein II. The files have been preserved in private collections—and “How Do I Know?” just got uploaded to YouTube—though exactly how many people harbor copies is also a mystery. 

Salsini, who founded the now-defunct magazine The Sondheim Review and authored the memoir Sondheim & Me: Revealing a Musical Genius, recently discovered that he himself owns one—a CD with an 80-minute recording of Phinney’s Rainbow on it.

“I noticed that there was a space between a couple of CDs and I looked at the shelf below and found that this recording had fallen down into the next shelf. It had literally fallen through the cracks,” Salsini told BBC News.

The 87-year-old Milwaukee resident plans to turn over the CD—whose provenance he can’t recall—to Marquette University’s Sondheim Research Collection, which he established in 2011. Sondheim-heads will be in for a treat if the recording ends up getting digitized or reproduced in some publicly consumable manner; according to Salsini, the songs lightly evoke various Sondheim classics, from West Side Story’s “Gee, Officer Krupke,” to Company’s “Not Getting Married.”

[h/t BBC News]

Some people watch HBO’s The White Lotus mainly to theorize about who might end up dead, while others simply love to revel in the cringe quality of its characters’ interactions. The show’s second season had plenty of opportunities for both. (Don’t worry—no spoilers here!)

Although it’s an anthology series, creator Mike White brought season 1 fan favorite Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) back for another fraught vacation, this time in Sicily with her new husband, Greg (John Gries), whom she met during season 1. Before the two embark on a day-long outing meant to fulfill all of Tanya’s Italian fantasies—primarily riding a Vespa and eating clam pasta—she asks hotel manager Valentina (Sabrina Impacciatore) to guess who she’s dressed as.

The answer she’s looking for is bombshell Italian actress Monica Vitti, who gained worldwide fame in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1960 classic L’Avventura. But the characteristically caustic Valentina takes one look at Tanya’s all-pink get-up and responds instead with “Peppa Pig.” That wasn’t a Mike White original: As Screen Rant reports, Impacciatore improvised the moment. 

She recounted the story during an Access Hollywood interview, which was also when she found out that the line made the final cut. “I’m so glad it’s on the show!” she said. “It was like my third day of shooting, and I was so intimidated by Jennifer [Coolidge]. Because to me, she’s a goddess; she’s a genius,” she said. But when White told the actors they could improvise while shooting that scene, Impacciatore didn’t let the intimidation keep her from likening Coolidge’s character to an anthropomorphic cartoon barn animal. And it paid off: “[Jennifer] could not stop laughing,” she said.

See Impacciatore tell the whole story via TikTok here.

[h/t Screen Rant]

In 1941, women with menopause finally were able to get relief from hot flashes with the release of Premarin. The estrogen-based hormonal drug works to restore some of the body’s estrogen, evening out the flashes and other menopause symptoms. And since 1941, no new classes of drug have been available for the same purpose.

That may change next year. Earlier this month, National Geographic’s Meryl Davids Landau reported that a new non-hormonal drug specifically for hot flashes could be released in 2023. The medication, fezolinetant, is currently under review by the Food and Drug Administration.

Hot flashes affect about 80 percent of women during menopause, with some people experiencing more than seven episodes a day. The flashes last from a few seconds to several minutes. On average, women going through menopause will experience regular hot flashes for about four years—but a very unlucky third of women have to deal with them for about a decade. And for Black and Indigenous American women, it’s even worse. Their flashes start earlier, last longer, and occur more frequently.

Until recently, scientists weren’t exactly sure what caused hot flashes to occur. They knew that it was related to a malfunctioning hypothalamus, but didn’t know exactly where the problem came from. A 2018 study in the journal Neuroendocrinology, though, shows that scientists were finally able to trace it back to specific neurons in the hypothalamus, called KNDy (pronounced candy) neurons. KNDy neurons regulate temperature, and the new drug blocks those neurons when they start to improperly react, which causes a hot flash.

“When estrogen falls, it causes this KNDy neuron complex to just basically go bonkers,” Dr. Susan Reed said during a keynote speech at the 2020 Annual North American Menopause Society Conference, as reported by UW Medicine. “It’s like turning on a gazillion fire hydrants, which spill over into the adjacent thermoregulatory center and cause thermoregulatory dysregulation, resulting in hot flashes. The thermoregulator center sends signals to the rest of the body to cool us when we are too hot (via hot flashes) and to warm us when we are too cool (shiver).”

Phase three clinical trials already have preliminary results that show fezolinetant eliminates two to four hot flashes every day. Another drug, elinzanetant, which acts in a similar way is also in phase three trials. With two-thirds of working women (in the UK alone) noting that menopause symptoms negatively impact their workday, these medications could become a hot commodity.

It’s been over a decade since A Dance With Dragons came out, and Game of Thrones fans are still eagerly awaiting The Winds of Winter. George R.R. Martin recently gave an update on the long-anticipated novel.

The Song of Ice and Fire author appeared on Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News, where animated host Dr. Ike Bloom (voiced by Ikechukwu Ufomadu) roasted Martin for his slow writing speed. Martin also got some tough love advice from none other than James Patterson, the bestselling author known for churning out novels with clockwork regularity. (These days Patterson uses an army of coauthors to keep up that reputation, but that’s beside the point.) You can see the interview in the video below.

Martin was a pretty good sport as Dr. Ike Bloom lambasted him for being “a struggling writer—let me revise that, truly pathetic—who is having trouble meeting deadlines.” The back-and-forth between Patterson and Martin was pretty funny, as Martin filled in the renowned crime fiction writer on his situation. Martin admited that his deadline was “11 years ago”—that’s part of the gag, as 11 years ago was when A Dance with Dragons came out and there’s no way Martin’s deadline for Winds was that same year.

Martin also recounted his process for Patterson, including how he writes on his trusty DOS computer with the Wordstar word processing program, which has been his habit for years. The highlight came when Patterson asked Martin how many pages he has done, to which Martin replied, “Eh, like 1100, 1200, something like that … it’s not done yet though. I need another 400 [or] 500 pages.”

Patterson had a suggestion for how Martin could solve his issue: “You break down the 1,100 pages into three books… You submit one book per year, they’ll be happy, and suddenly you’ll be ahead of schedule,” he said.

That’s not dissimilar from what happened with Martin’s last two Song of Ice and Fire books. A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons were originally supposed to be one book; they were broken up as deadlines came and went.

Martin has made a lot of progress on Winds over the past few years, and has been talking about it more openly in public of late. Recently he said the book was around “three quarters of the way done.” But given how long it took him to get there, there’s no guarantee there will be any kind of sprint to the finish.

In 1932, King George V delivered Britain’s first Christmas Broadcast. His message of good cheer hit the airwaves and sparked a new royal tradition that became a standard part of Christmas for Britain and beyond. 

Queen Elizabeth II made her own holiday history in 1957. That year—the 25th anniversary of her grandfather’s first Christmas broadcast—the annual message aired on television rather than radio. The transition from radio to a televised broadcast marked a new era for the monarchy and made the institution appear more accessible and personal to its people. You can watch the historic event in the video above.

For the first time in history, those who tuned into the program could both hear and see the sovereign. As Queen Elizabeth II put it:

“It is inevitable that I should seem a rather remote figure to many of you. A successor to the Kings and Queens of history; someone whose face may be familiar in newspapers and films but who never really touches your personal lives. But now at least for a few minutes I welcome you to the peace of my own home.”

The new medium was a hit: The first televised Christmas broadcast ushered in 16.5 million viewers from Great Britain (plus 9.5 million radio listeners), which was a larger audience than any other program had received at that time.

There has only been one Christmas without a broadcast. In 1969, pamphlets were distributed around the country with a message from the queen because a documentary about the royal family had aired that summer. “I have received a great number of kind letters and messages of regard and concern about this year’s break with the usual broadcast at Christmas and I want you all to know that my good wishes are no less warm and personal because they come to you in a different form,” she wrote.

The event continues to hold significance today. Queen Elizabeth II, who died on September 8, 2022, delivered her last holiday message in 2021. King Charles III will continue the royal tradition by giving his very first Christmas broadcast this year.