I should point out at the start that I’m a light sleeper and also have problems falling asleep in the first place.
Over the years I’ve been using mathematical problems to help me drift off. Things like thinking of a 4 digit number and trying to work out the cube root or working out all it’s divisors.
I appreciate that this is probably some form of meditation and wondered if other dopers used similar ‘tricks’ and what worked for them?
Peter
I used to use number things, but I found that they engaged me and kept me trying to stay awake. When I can’t sleep, it’s usually the mental dialogue that keeps me awake. So sometimes I just repeat “no words no words” over and over again- sort of an internal white noise. This generally works.
If you can remember any recent dreams, think about what you can remember. Even if you only remember, say, that there was a red car in the dream, concentrate on that red car and anything you remember about it.
Occasionally when I have trouble going to sleep (the “can’t turn the brain off” type), I’ll count backwards from 100, but instead of just counting I’ll mentally visualize each numeral. This seems to occupy enough of my brain that the inner babbling stops.
I lay back, gently roll my eyes to the top of my head (where they would rest while sleeping) and count backwards from 20. If I hit 1, I start again. I also focus on slowing down my breathing.
Back in the day, when I had trouble sleeping, I used to multiply large numbers in my head to help fall asleep.
I go through the alphabet, thinking the first word that pops into my head for each letter. It keeps down the interior babble, without requiring concentration that would keep me awake, and it’s boring and thus sleep inducing. Sometimes it works, sometimes the babble wins.
I count backward from 100 too but I do it by 3s. 100, 97, 93… I usually drift off before I get halfway.
Counting sheep doesn’t work for me, because I have an urge to chuckle “Ha ha ha!” after each number – it’s my vampire blood, I can’t help it. 
Relaxation/meditation exercises work pretty good, but if I really need to sleep, I’ll break out the Tylenol PM or drink some hot tea or Coca-Cola. (Yes, caffeine puts me to sleep – my doctor’s equally mystified by that.)
My brain hates me. If my thinking is about getting to sleep I am less able to actually do it.
I find that reading a book helps. Sometimes I can drift off because I’ve been deep in thought about something non-stressful.
Me too but I find that counting backwards by 6’s, 7’s and 8’s is the only thing that works.
I had a difficult time with achieving meditation or sleep until someone explained it with the phrase “listening to the space between thoughts”. It never had even occurred to me that there could be spaces between thoughts, and I found it so fascinating that I was able to get really good at it. Meditation-wise, I never got much farther than that, but I find it’s a damned solid trick for falling asleep or beating back nonproductive internal monologues.
I focus on visualizing pitch darkness and that puts me to sleep. Solving any problems in my head just keeps me awake.
I have a weird mental game I’ve played since I was an insomniac child.
I take off all blankets, then:
I’m in a blizzard! Oh, it’s cold. The wind, the snow, I’m freezing! Can I hold out until I get to shelter?
That goes on as long as I can stand it, then I cover up again. For some reason, that usually knocks me out.
My old stand-by was to come up with some distance in the solar system and calculate the time it would take for light to cross that distance. This is especially effective if you stick with the 186,000 miles/sec for light speed, rather than copping out with metric.
Somewhat like jsgoddess, I’ve also found that being cold helps. Often, I’ll get up for half an hour or so and read, then come back to bed after it’s had a chance to cool down again. If it was up to me alone, I’d keep the thermostat at 58 or so at night, but I put up to 62 for the sake of my wife. I’m always blown away when we visit relatives in Arizona for Christmas; they think 70 is a good setting at night.
Two things that help me:
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Keep a notebook by the side of the bed. if you have any thoughts, write them down so they don’t bother you. You can deal with them in the morning.
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Try the ‘fourfold breath.’ breathe in for a count of 4, hold for 2, out for 4, hold for 2 and repeat.
At one point I started memorizing the Book of John, and I still have the first chapter memorized. All I need to do to get to sleep is to begin in my mind “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…” and so on.
I usually fall asleep somewhere around when John the Baptist is saying “Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah wrote”
To the OP, try repeating something that you have memorized word-for-word in the past. Perhaps a poem or some literature.
ETA: Going for a sleep study next week. I can’t imagine how I’ll fall asleep all wired up like that dude in “A Clockwork Orange” with people looking at me on camera. I’ll have to give each of the techniques from this thread a try.
i used to do this, except a bit more proactive. when i was a kid i wanted to be a fighter pilot so my go-to dream kick-starter was an image of me in the cockpit, turning on the afterburners, and looking for MiGs. the transition from fantasy to dream was seamless.
I seldom have trouble sleeping, but if I do, I try to mentally plan an important project, breaking it down into stages, then breaking each stage down into tasks, materials, etc - I figure in these cases, since my brain is being obtuse about sleeping when I need to, defeating me by staying awake, it’ll be obtuse about staying awake for something important, and will defeat me by dropping off to sleep. Usually seems to work.
I do this too but I start with a different number each time, 101, 102, etc.