Morning Light Kept Ruining My Sleep. Then I Discovered This Mask.
The polyester-covered Nidra eye mask is different from a standard style that is designed to lay flat against your face. Instead, it has a bra-like shape, with deep, wide cups that allow your eyelids to flutter freely without letting any light in. Nidra, which means “sleep” in Sanskrit, was created by a woman who needed some relief from her own insomnia, and the company continues to be women-run to this day.
The Nidra sleep mask, which comes in multiple fun colors, has an adjustable elastic strap that fastens snugly to your head with a plastic slider, keeping it in place throughout the night. (Previous iterations of the mask had a velcro strap, which some testers preferred, and some found got caught in their hair.)
Due to its secure fit, the mask blocks light extremely well. I rarely ever wake up before my alarm when I am wearing it—ideal, considering my late bedtime. It works so well, in fact, I have had to wean myself off from wearing it on weekends when I don’t use an alarm because I was sleeping well past noon. (Yes, I could wear the Nidra sleep mask and set an alarm on a Friday night, but life is about pleasure.)
I switch from my back to my side frequently during sleep, and our pick from Nidra is the only sleep mask that has stayed in place all night as I rolled around, regardless of position. Whenever I have used a cheap airline-style mask, I’d throw it across the room in the middle of the night without realizing it. In group testing for our sleep-mask guide, testers noted that the Nidra mask is wider from temple to temple than other options, and is therefore comfortable for a wide range of head and nose shapes.
