Steve . . . . dead right about the deadly boring inducing drowsiness. Where I worked we called our many company issued manuals BIG RED SLEEPING PILLS.
For some there is soft music or soporific poetry to lull them into sleepiness.
The lullaby goes back centuries of course.
Kenneth Slessor was an Australian poet of the highest distinction. (He was also a war correspondent whose 'Beach Burial' is well worth a look, based on his experiences in Crete after the Germans over ran Greece. )
Another of his he called simply SLEEP -
Do you give yourself to me utterly,
Body and no-body, flesh and no-flesh,
Not as a fugitive, blindly or bitterly,
But as a child might, with no other wish?
Yes, utterly.
Then shall I bear you down my estuary,
Carry you and ferry you to burial mysteriously,
Take you and receive you,
Consume you, engulf you,
In the huge cave, my belly, lave you
With huger waves continually.
And you shall cling and clamber there
And slumber there, in that dumb chamber,
Beat with my blood's beat, hear my heart move
Blindly in bones that ride above you,
Delve in my flesh, dissolved and bedded,
Through viewless valves embodied so–
Till daylight, the expulsion and awakening,
The riving and driving forth,
Life with remorseless forceps beckoning–
Pangs and betrayal of harsh birth.