I Tried Stephen Fry’s Unusual Sleeping Hack – Here’s How It Went

I’ve had insomnia for as long as I can remember, which means (as anyone with the condition will know) that I’ve tried pretty much every sleep trick out there. 

I go to bed with a weighted eye mask to block out every last bit of springtime light. I go out to catch the morning rays every day to help keep my circadian rhythm in check, and I stop eating at least three hours before bed. 

A lot of these changes really have helped, but they haven’t been a complete cure. So I was pretty interested to hear that Stephen Fry, who has spoken before about his insomnia, uses an, er, unorthodox method to nod off at night. 

I’ve been sleeping terribly recently, so I reckoned it was worth a shot.

What’s Stephen Fry’s secret to better sleep?

Speaking on the BBC’s The Scott Mills Breakfast Show this week, the actor said: “For me what I do is I go to the kitchen and I make mayonnaise.” 

He said he once made it in the middle of the night because he was up, so he decided he “may as well” get going on the next day’s meals. 

“And then I realised that mixture of sort of relaxation, rhythm, and a little bit of concentration so that the thing doesn’t split” worked, he said.

“Your stress hormone I think drops when you do something like making mayonnaise, a bit like knitting.” 

We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about how getting out of bed and doing little tasks (like reading or folding laundry) can paradoxically make you better able to return to sleep than simply staying under the covers.

I’ve seen great success with reading after getting up in the middle of the night – so, after last night’s premature rising, I thought, “Why not get cracking on the mayo?”.

The method unfortunately didn’t work for me

Let me start by saying that this was my first time making mayonnaise, and I absolutely botched it. 

Perhaps, for seasoned mayo-makers like Stephen, cortisol levels really do drop when making the dish. For me, though, my eyes darted from screen to bowl to egg yolk to the sudden bubbling monster I’d accidentally created.

I added way too much oil too quickly, meaning the yolks split. I tried lobbing in some mustard for a bit of a tang and ended up spooning nearly half a jar in – I didn’t want to taste it as I went because I’d already brushed my teeth. I noticed my error when the stench overpowered my tiny kitchen. 

The sound of the metal whisk incessantly clanging against my bowl actually woke up my partner, too (a double disaster). 

That’s not to say, though, that Stephen’s logic isn’t sound. It’s not his fault I’m rubbish at making mayo, or that my 3am brain wasn’t up to reading the instructions properly. 

As we’ve said before, familiar, low-stakes pottering – like crocheting, organising bookshelves, and reading, in my case – can really help when you can’t get back to bed. 

But take it from me; the hours between 11pm and 6am are definitely not the best times to try perfecting your first-ever jar of “Fry-onnaise”.