Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep · Wellness Loud

Return to the Chalet, Part 2

January 5, 2026·32 min·3 clips

I accepted the spa water and asked for slippers that fit.

Host Kathryn Nicolai opens with a note on the naturalness of falling asleep to voices and sounds, situating the show within the long human tradition of hearing a fire or ambient voices at night rather than silence. She explains the story will be told twice and that the second telling goes more slowly, which she recommends for listeners who wake again in the night. The chalet setting is established as a mountain resort where the narrator is staying with their dog, a short-legged black-and-white mixed breed named Alphabet who has been given his own dog bed by the hotel but has migrated to the narrator’s bed and made himself comfortable in the faux-fur throw. The narrator wakes naturally without an alarm after sleeping in, feels a sense of pride at this small achievement, and reads it as evidence that the getaway is working, each day stripping away a layer of accumulated exhaustion. A chef friend from the narrator’s home village who works winters at the hotel receives a text asking for spa booking advice and replies simply: you’re booked, show up at ten, we’ll send down lunch. This act of taking the decision completely out of the narrator’s hands is described as a literal weight lifting from the shoulders. After a morning walk with Alphabet along a wooden boardwalk overlooking skiers, the narrator goes to the spa and practices receiving care rather than deflecting it, accepting the spa water, wearing the fluffiest robe, and asking for different-sized slippers. During the massage, they request a quiet appointment and allow themselves to be in it without small talk. The sauna, hot tub, and cold plunge are enjoyed in rotation until a soft gong signals that lunch is ready in the lounge. The narrator describes looking in the mirror before going to collect lunch and seeing their face as deeply and maybe radically restored.

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