For busy, successful people, sleep is a precious commodity – rare and treasured.
So when it comes to getting a solid night of shut-eye, some do everything they can to not let insomnia, pressure at work, or snoring spouses get in the way – even if that means creating a weird nightly routine or napping to get through the day.
Here’s a look at the most bizarre sleeping habits of 14 highly successful people.
Tom Cruise sleeps in a sound-proof ‘snoratorium.’
“Whoever uses the snoring room cannot be heard outside the locked door,” an alleged visitor to the actor’s house told the Daily Mail. “It’s very small, comfortable, and dark.”
Winston Churchill took a two-hour nap every day.
Churchill would often work through the night and became known as quite the night owl. Due to his irregular sleep schedule, he was said to hold War Cabinet meetings in his bath.
Mariah Carey surrounds her bed with 20 humidifiers and needs 15 hours of shut-eye per night.
The singer also admitted to sleeping with 20 humidifiers around her bed, which soothe sore throats and add moisture to dry air. “Basically, it’s like sleeping in a steam room,” she said.
All of Stephen King’s pillows are pointed in a certain direction.
“I brush my teeth, I wash my hands. Why would anybody wash their hands before they go to bed? I don’t know,” he says. “And the pillows are supposed to be pointed a certain way. The open side of the pillowcase is supposed to be pointed in toward the other side of the bed. I don’t know why.”
Charles Dickens slept facing north to improve his creativity.
The writer believed this quirky practice improved his creativity.
Marissa Mayer catches up on sleep during weeklong vacations every four months.
Novelist Emily Brontë walked around in circles until she fell asleep.
Eminem puts tin foil on his windows to keep out the light.
He also listens to white noise throughout the night, which he claims helps him sleep better when traveling between different time zones.
Arianna Huffington turned her bedroom into a ‘slumber palace.’
Huffington turned her bedroom into a “slumber palace,” complete with a canopied bed and blackout curtains. Before bed, she turns off her phone and plugs all her electronics in to charge overnight — outside of the bedroom. She then takes a hot bath, filled with Epsom salt and lavender oil, to calm her mind and help her forget the stresses of the day.
What she wears matters as well, and Huffington only sleeps in garments meant for slumber; no old gym t-shirts allowed here. Finally, she dives into a book on poetry or philosophy and lets it lull her to sleep.
Martha Stewart only sleeps four hours per night.
Stewart also stays up late reading or watching late-night TV. “It’s an exhausting lifestyle, and I always say sleep can go,” she told WebMD. “It’s not important to me right now.”
Leonardo da Vinci’s sleep schedule included 20-minute naps every four hours.
This unconventional sleep cycle may have given the artist/inventor/scientist more awake time during his days, but could have also made it difficult for him to work on long-term projects.
Michael Phelps sleeps in a chamber with air comparable to 8,500 to 9,000 feet.
“Once I’m already in my room I still have to open a door to get into my bed,” Phelps said on CBS News program “60 Minutes” in 2012. “It’s just like a giant box. It’s like ‘boy and the bubble.'”
Inventor Nikola Tesla never slept for more than two hours a day.
“I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success … Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything,” he said.
Lyndon B. Johnson divided his day into two shifts.
Johnson reportedly picked up his napping routine from his predecessor John F. Kennedy, who also broke up his day into shifts.