Most weeknights of my childhood, I’d lie in bed waiting for sleep like it was a late school bus. Every few minutes, I’d peek at my Panasonic flip clock, panic a bit more about how soon school would start, and sink my teeth further into whatever that night’s worry was. (At the time, the Presidential Fitness Test was a particular bête noire.)I didn’t grow out of it. Sleeplessness dogged me for decades, trailing me into high school, through college, and into adulthood. I tried to address it, with occasional diphenhydramine and the frequent lull of Law & Order reruns, but nothing I did was especially healthy. It was annoying, but I got by like that for years. (If a single woman living alone doesn’t fall asleep in the forest, does anyone hear it — or care?)But then marriage changed the complexion of my insomnia. My husband’s many, many blessings include untroubled sleep, which is infuriating to witness at close range. Worse yet, my mister has zero tolerance for my stabs in the dark at restfulness: He forbids police procedurals on the bedroom TV and also hates when I leave my lamp on.That first rule is especially heinous, but the second one was a bit of a moot point, as I almost never used to read at night because the light tended to keep me awake and engaged. Instead, I was left to stew in my own juices, blinking at the ceiling … or to find an actually dependable approach to falling asleep. But then, quite by accident, everything changed when I got a Kindle, which Wirecutter has recommended for more than a decade as the best e-reader.Top pickAmazon’s most affordable Kindle is also its most portable, with a 6-inch screen that offers sharp text on a bright screen and support for USB-C charging. Those features bring it in line with far more expensive e-readers. The Kids version costs an extra $20 but comes with a slew of perks that make it an excellent option.Upgrade pickThe waterproof Kindle Paperwhite is worth upgrading to if you want a bigger screen for reading more text at a time, if you want to adjust the color temperature as well as the lighting, and if you do a lot of reading at the beach or a pool.I bought my first Amazon Kindle almost a decade into my marriage so that I could read while my daughter ran around the playground. The Kindle (an equivalent of the 2024 version, our top pick) was more portable than a paper book, and I loved that I could adjust the font size if I forgot my glasses and that the backlit screen let me keep reading even at twilight as my kid did her last (and last-last) tricks on the monkey bars.Then I started reading my ebook in bed with the lights out, and the funniest thing happened: I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I’d get under the covers, lie on my side, hold the cozily glowing Kindle in my right hand, read a paragraph, a page, a chapter — and wake up to my alarm the next morning. (The Kindle would go into sleep mode soon after I did and spend the night in the crumple of my bedding.) A scene from my marriage. Rory Evans/NYT WirecutterI realized that the position I comfortably read a Kindle in was the same position I slept in. Before, I would curl up, get comfy, and be bombarded with intrusive thoughts. But the e-reader replaced the worry with a story that primed me for sleep.It turns out that reading an ebook (on a Kindle or any other e-reader) activates fewer networks in the brain than reading a paper one. “You’re not under the light, you’re not turning pages, you’re not holding the heavier book. You’re just tapping to turn a page,” Katherine Sharkey, a doctor and sleep researcher at Wake Forest School of Medicine, said in a video interview. “You’re quieting your mind.”Admittedly, some research suggested that using an e-reader at night can mess with sleep, circadian rhythms, and alertness the next day. But Sharkey told me that other sleep experts took issue with that study’s process. (The original researchers then clapped back in what Sharkey called “quite the scientific kerfuffle!”)But also, that study is more than a decade old, and the Kindle’s screen options have certainly improved. I can adjust the screen’s brightness or toggle it to dark mode (which I rarely do, but it’s the only way my husband ever reads).The Kindle Paperwhite, Wirecutter’s upgrade e-reader pick, also has a warm-light option, with 24 increments between white and warm yellow, according to my colleague Caitlin McGarry. (If Thomas Kinkade had designed an ebook, it would be the Paperwhite set to its snuggest, goldenest glow.)To be quite honest, I’m not worried about the light’s messing with my wakefulness, mostly because I have never noticed any such effect. After my decades of sleep difficulties, I finally discovered that an ebook is the most critical component of my sleep hygiene — and it has worked through both perimenopause and menopause. Sharkey, for her part, backed me up on this: Having a habit for successful sleep matters.As the years have gone by with this go-to sleep solution, I’ve added a few accoutrements: a strap that keeps the e-reader in drowsy-dropsy hands, and inexpensive reading glasses that are lightweight, clear, and comfortable even when I lie on my side — and which I often end up wearing the entire night through. (The reading glasses let me set the font size much smaller and therefore tap to turn pages less often.)My bedtime holy trinity: my Kindle (11th generation), the drowsy-proof hand strap, and cheap reading glasses that I can comfortably sleep in. Rory Evans/NYT WirecutterI paid $20 extra for the ad-free lock screen (right). My husband didn’t spring for that upgrade on his Paperwhite (left). Rory Evans/NYT WirecutterMy husband goes with dark mode on his 7-inch version, and I prefer classic style (and Helvetica!) on my 6-inch model. Rory Evans/NYT WirecutterMy bedtime holy trinity: my Kindle (11th generation), the drowsy-proof hand strap, and cheap reading glasses that I can comfortably sleep in. Rory Evans/NYT WirecutterObviously, like so many people who’ve been visited upon by miracles, I tell it on the mountain. Every time a friend or colleague — often they’re women with young kids, crazy hormones, or both — mentions struggles with sleeplessness, I proselytize for the e-reader lifestyle. It’s a screen but not your phone (or the bottomless and abusive pit of social media), I preach. It’s lit but low-tech, computerized but cozy. And you will shock yourself not only with how much you read but also with how much you relax and rest.I converted my friend and colleague Hannah Morrill, who covers gifts, more than a year ago. “It legit changed my life,” she told me, who had previously used the lesser Kindle iPhone app to read in bed. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, “the e-reader has me back to sleep in 20 minutes, when before I would have been reading and ruminating for two and a half hours.” (One of my editors on this article, Katie Okamoto, shared similar praise after a period of insomnia.)I’m now almost a decade, and a few Kindle upgrades, deep into my accidental insomnia solution, and it has only become more effective. Some nights, I don’t even get around to turning it on — just the Kindle’s weight in my hand is a comfort that lulls me to sleep. Rather unexpectedly, I have joined my husband in our dark, cozy, TV-free room, and in the land of unburdened sleep.This article was edited by Katie Okamoto and Maxine Builder.Further readingThe Best E-ReaderPhysical books are treasures, but they’re just not as convenient as a digital library. We recommend an e-reader for taking your collection on the go.The Best Sleep MaskA comfortable, well-fitting sleep mask blocks disruptive light, which can help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer.
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