Elon Musk says falling asleep feels like trying to shut down a computer with 100 browser tabs still open. His fix, according to Benzinga, is a short audiobook that works like a bedtime story, played on a 15-minute timer.
The idea is simple. The timer keeps it short, and the story gives his busy mind one thing to follow instead of a hundred. Once the audiobook is running, he says, his brain has something else to focus on until he drifts off.
Not a new habit
Musk has described this kind of trick before. In August 2023 he wrote on X that he used history podcasts on a timer to fall asleep. In May 2024, at the Milken Global Conference, he said he listens to podcasts about the fall of civilisations to fall asleep, according to NME.
How much he sleeps
Musk has said he sleeps about six hours a night and that cutting back made him less productive. It was not always so calm. In 2018 he told The New York Times that at his busiest it was often a choice between no sleep and Ambien, as Forbes reported. He has since said he cut back from those 120-hour work weeks to about 80 to 90 hours.
Our take: the browser tab line works because most people know the feeling. A busy mind at bedtime is common, and the audio trick is cheap and easy to try. One simple way is a calm audiobook, a timer and a dark screen. What stands out is that a man who runs several companies still needs a bedtime story. This is one person’s habit, not medical advice, and anyone with constant sleep trouble should talk to a doctor.
We also looked at what Musk says makes him happy in another story.
