How to Sleep on the Subway
If you’ve ever been on the NYC Subway during rush hour, you’ve seen us. One minute, we’re innocently yet vulnerably sleeping with our valuables clutched. The next, you hear, “This is (insert station here)” and we bounce up as if we were waiting for it. We’re the train sleepers. It’s an acquired art that can help you catch up on your Z’s or even get your Z’s altogether if you work weird shifts. I wouldn’t recommend doing this late-night unless you’re experienced, though. You can easily have your coat pocket cut open and wake up at 4am in Brownsville if you’re not careful. For your average commuter though, the worst that will happen is you’ll miss your stop and catch the bulk of the morning Starbucks rush. At best, you can get some good rest before those fluorescent lights and icy cold office temperatures hit you. Here’s how to sleep on the train:
Know your stops.
Ask any train sleeper about the order of the stops on their daily commute. We can tell you the names of the stops, what, if any, connecting lines there are, and what the cross-streets and nearest attractions are. We know where and how to get on and off the train to minimize unnecessary walking and foot traffic. Our talent for finding alternate routes to get to any destination is unaparalleled. We know the entire spectrum of train lines and are well traveled on each of them.
We can get to your aunt’s baby shower in the Flatlands, your brother’s basketball game at Cardinal Spellman, our friend’s birthday dinner in Greenpoint, the dim sum spot in Chinatown, your cousin’s bar mitzvah in Flushing, or that random house party in Washington Heights. We know the late night schedules and what every new round of MTA construction means for our commutes. We’ve been to each borough with enough frequency to gauge how much time it takes to get from point A to point B.
Most importantly, we’ve traveled our commute enough times to get a general sense of when we should get off the train. We can feel when we hit our metaphorical ‘snooze’ button one too many times and are going to have a nice view of the Brooklyn Bridge instead of getting to work early. The knowledge helps us perfect our subway siestas so our boss doesn’t know we’ve been clocking in early this week.
Know your sleep cycle.
There are five stages to the sleep cycle. You know the dream stage of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. The other four stages are NREM (non-REM) sleep, and they happen less the longer you sleep. Stage one, our sweet spot, is one of relaxed wakefulness. Remember that kid who always fell asleep in class? He’d always jerk when he work up and swear he wasn’t asleep. It’s because he thinks he wasn’t. He didn’t even know he was in limbo. Sleeping on the train takes advantage of that stage by keeping you in limbo. Mastering that limbo is mostly learning how to actually fall asleep on a crowded, noisy train.
Close your eyes lightly and focus on the rhythm of the train hitting the tracks or speeding up and slowing down. Tilt your head back and breathe slowly. Forget everyone around you and think about the day ahead of you. Try counting by 7s or listening to the couple next to you quietly argue about their baby’s hair or guessing what song someones headphones are blaring from across the car. I always think about mundane tasks like doing your laundry or why your room is messy the day after you clean it.
If you’re doing this correctly, you should end up in a meditative and half-asleep state where you can hear the noise but it’s not waking you up. It’s like you’re at the doorway to DreamLand looking back at yourself, not wanting to miss Donut Wednesdays. You’re in stage one of nREM sleep with a cortical theta rhythm keeping you from dropping your purse on that wet spot in front of you.
You might open your eyes every couple of minutes if the train jerks. You might sense someone or something stirring around you. You might hear the song in your headphones change. You’re aware of it all, even though you’re sleeping. Those sensations are what keep you from going into the second stage of sleep and ultimately falling asleep. Perfect that balance, and you can get as much sleep as your commute will allow.
Know your surroundings.
There’s a ‘New York’ awareness one can come to after this realization: New York is inherently noisy and dirty. If you wanted to hear that serial killer coming to disembowel you or be able to smell fresh air, you’d move to a small town in Idaho with one bar and not a 6-person studio in Chelsea. When you’re on the train, you’re in the belly of the beast. To drown out the noise and nastiness, you have to accept it. That awareness of surroundings will help you get some shut-eye before that 7am conference call with the Mumbai office.
A ‘New York’ pet peeve of mine is people who don’t know how to lug their cargo in an eco-friendly manner. I’ve seen women take up seats with their 2nd and 3rd bags while they take their 1st one out to do makeup. I’ve seen bikes laid out in the middle of the opening. I’ve seen tourists with crowds of luggage blocking off entire sections of the car. They clog the flow of passengers and have made many a laggard or novice train-sleeper miss their stop.
That’s also why it pays to be aware of your surroundings. Train-sleepers, by habit, are very good at orienting themselves. As a regular rush train-sleeper you should find and get a favorite seat in the same car on the train that dumps you at your desired station exit. I prefer the end seat facing the boarding side, because you can always see what stop it is at a moment’s notice. Plus it’s nice not having a sweaty jogger on both sides.
Have an active sense to take in all around around you before train-sleeping. Make sure your valuables are always clutched so that you can move at a moment’s notice. Try to keep appendages like headphones, jewelry, and coats out of the way. I’ve seen everything from someone’s hair to a stroller wheel get stuck in the train doors or on people’s limbs. Keep your wits about you, and you’ll pop up at your stop, ready to BS that presentation you had three weeks to prepare for.
