What’s been a drag for me lately is that I like to read. I read before bed. But when I go to bed now, I’m asleep in about a minute.
A lot of that has to do with the hours that my Wife and I keep. We get up between 3:30 and 4:30 am. No alarms or anything. We just do.
I’ve been doing what @iiandyiiii is doing for years, too. Concocting a story. But it’s more like a tv show with several seasons I guess. It’s not a very compelling story, not something I’d ever write out. And it hasn’t progressed much, as I keep going back to the beginning (re-runs?) but I’ve been with these characters in this situation for at least 15 years. I had a different set of characters in a different story, when I was younger, before I bought my house.
Story time is for when I REALLY can’t fall asleep, though. My regular sleep routine for the past decade or so is watching a mystery show and just drifting off. I turn my back to the screen and I find that having to concentrate on listening to the dialogue while imagining the scenes in my head is plenty enough to put me to sleep.
I took a couple of years and went through every episode of Law & Order to help me sleep, like @Dereknocue67 . I found that I could stay awake for the police part and get to know all the characters, then turn away from the screen and fall asleep to the court scenes.
The dulcet tones of the narrator on Forensic Files puts me right to sleep. It doesn’t matter that he’s talking about murder and mayhem - if I put the volume low, it’s a sure fire way to a nap on the couch.
(College football seeks to do the same thing to me. I routinely miss the 2nd and 3d quarters due to a snooze)
As for at night, I’ve recently tried to stretch before bed. I’ve found it useful for relaxing my body, and is conducive to drifting off.
I usually listen to a podcast or a TV show that I am familiar with. Another Time Team fan here.
If I’m not in the mood for that, I’ll try replaying a pleasant walk that I had taken recently, like around the lake or through a museum.
Sometimes, I’ll do math problems, like finding strings of primes in arithmetic progression, or checking the Goldbach conjecture. I haven’t found a counterexample yet, but if I do, you all will be the first to know.
A friend of mine used to routinely nap while golf was on TV. No loud bursts of noise.
Read, watch videos, listen to audiobooks or podcasts, or masturbate while coming up with sexual fantasies, until I am so tired I don’t have the energy for any of those. Often, I’ll set my audiobook player with a 30 minute timer, and wear bluetooth headphones and most of the time I’ll eventually just fall asleep. Basically do anything to keep my mind from wandering.
I have obstructive sleep apnea, and my CPAP seems to put me out pretty quickly most of the time – it has a little bit of noise, and the comforting movement of air that by now (23 years on) has my body programmed to sleep. If I don’t drop right off, then I mull over things in my mind that are comforting, like sex.
Maybe 3 or 4 times a month, I will not be able to go back to sleep after getting up to pee, usually in the 3am-4am range. If nothing works, I get out of bed, turn on a low light and go over to my computer to waste time until I tire myself out. This usually takes an hour or less. I may need to snooze an extra 10 minutes after my alarm goes off, but usually effects are minimal. I know you’re not supposed to look at backlit screens, but my blue light filtered glasses seem to take care of that.
Find a good podcast. Someone with a soothing voice. Here’s two:
Nothing much happens
The essential guide to writing a novel
If I had my druthers I’d have a college basketball game on a bedroom tv. The rhythms of it with my eyes closed are very relaxing, especially since I’m almost never vested in the outcome.
As it is I rely on an ongoing sequence of simple permutations and combinations. After doing it for so long I think my brain recognizes them as the signal to shut down.
I read somewhere (I don’t remember where) that one should inhale for a certain number of seconds, hold one’s breath for a different number of seconds, and exhale for yet a third number.
I decided to try three seconds for all three. I started doing it lately when I wake up after four; too early to get up for me, too late usually to fall back asleep. It’s worked great.
One method is inhale for a count of 4, hold for 4, exhale for 6, hold for 4. Repeat a few times. The main principle is to make your exhale last a couple of counts longer than your exhale.
Mostly I just let my mind wander and off I go within a few minutes. On the rare occasion that I do have trouble falling asleep, listening to music on my phone will distract an overactive mind.
On the other hand, if I wake up from a dream with some disturbing action, I have more trouble falling asleep. Turning the light on and reading apparently will reset my brain so that I can drift off again.
My wife is amazed at how easily I fall asleep, and yet I seem to require far less sleep than she…maybe I fall asleep easily because I am sleep deprived? : )
Thanks to the thread advice, I’ve changed my background noise to pink and have also started counting backwards from 100. I actually seem to be getting back to sleep quicker in the middle of the night.
The pink noise was really a game changer for me. I don’t know why, but it works!
It’s really surprising. I’ve listened to thunderstorm sounds for years. Coincidentally, the pink noise sounds just like the rush of air my cpap makes when I take my mask off.
I personally don’t try to shut my brain off so much as let go of the real world. I let my imagination go until it seems to start going on its own. It doesn’t always work to get to sleep, but I at least get to rest.
One trick I do sometimes use is looking up while my eyes are closed, while relaxing everything and visualize just black for a bit to help clear thoughts. I find I naturally do that when I’m really sleepy. If I do it on purpose, I can completely forget the thought I just had. I’ve concentrated on that blankness before. But doing so keeps me awake unless I then do what I said in the above paragraph, or I’m just really, really sleepy.
I use the same video–or at least a similar one. Any mental activity keeps me up. I try to empty my mind.
All screens off by 1930 at the latest, bedroom fan, audiobook. I’ve found that Agatha Christie works well; she keeps me just interested enough to not allow my thoughts to wander, but she’s low-key enough to relax to.
Me either. Trying to fall asleep just makes it harder.
On a normal night I don’t actually go through a gradual process of falling asleep. I’m either awake or asleep. That whole slowly drifting off to sleep thing happens no more than once or twice a month. Even when it’s taken an hour to attain sleep, it’s still like a switch has just suddenly been flipped to off.