Beat Insomnia with a Spoonk

A spoonk is a type of acupressure mat, sixteen inches wide by twenty-six inches tall, which is soft but covered with hundreds of sharp, plastic spikes. I heard that two-thirds of families of Sweden own one. You use it by lying on it like a bed of nails.

Of the many tools in my kit to improve sleep, and to beat insomnia, my spoonk is one of the most powerful. I have never laid down on my spoonk and not fallen asleep. This guide will explain how to use a spoonk properly, and give you the faith to get over the pain hump that many people experience with this powerful tool.

First, place the spoonk down on your bed so that it will be positioned underneath as much of your back as possible. Then lie on top of it, on your back, without any clothing between your skin and the spikes. Getting onto the spoonk is the hardest part. You should start by sitting just below it on the bed, and then incrementally lower your back onto it. It will probably be very painful. Take slow, deep breaths, and trust me that it will all be worth it.

At first, as you lie there on the spoonk, you will feel a lot of sharp pain in your back. If you move, even a little, it will exacerbate the pain. Persist with this for a few minutes, and you will find that, as the blood flow increases to your back, it will start to feel warm. The warmth will then cover your entire back, and after a few more minutes will be replaced by a feeling of deep relaxation that spreads over your entire body.

As the relaxed feeling spreads, you will begin to fall asleep. You will awake somewhere between 40 and 120 minutes later, knowing that it’s time to remove the spoonk. You can then peel yourself off the spoonk, place it on the floor beside the bed, and easily fall back to sleep.

The spoonk not only helps me to sleep, but it has also removed chronic muscular tension in my back, tension that’s bad for my posture, and is associated with anxiety and stress. Before I regularly used my spoonk, every time I would get a massage, the massage therapist would spend a lot of time working on the mass of knots in my back, knots that never seemed to fully go away. I asked a few massage therapists what I could do to remove or prevent the knots. They told me that it was not possible because the knots were due to my lifestyle, including my extensive use of a computer for work. However, after I had massages following the use of my spoonk, I noticed that there didn’t seem to be any knots there at all. “Are there any knots in my back?” I would ask, and the massage therapist would respond by telling me that the muscles in my back were in really good shape with no knots at all.

If you ever struggle with going to sleep or staying asleep, or if you suffer from chronic muscle tension, I highly recommend that you start using a spoonk.

You might now want to read my more extensive guide about How to Sleep Like a Boss.