I’m in the opposite camp of earplug users; I need a little white noise. Running the A/C or a fan in the summer does the trick, but I do have a sound machine for that fake rainfall sound the rest of the year.
I usually fall asleep pretty readily, but am of an age where I need to get up to pee at least once a night. And falling back asleep can sometimes be challenging. Especially if I have stuff on my mind. One of my favorite fall-asleep tricks is a mental alphabet movie game–I start with “A” and think of every movie I can that begins with that letter. Then onto “B” and so on. If sleeplessness happens several nights in a row, I just start on a different letter. It usually does the trick and keeps my mind off any daytime issues. (TMI: my other go-to mental diversionary tactic is to fantasize myself in a girl-girl-guy, or girl-guy-guy threesome. Sad to say, I usually drift off. )
A few more rules I abide by: no caffeine after noon, no naps (much as I love them), no extravagant sleeping late on days off (not more than an hour past my usual time to get up). I won’t get out of bed to smoke a cigarette even if I want to because they say the nicotine will keep you up. Alcohol, on the other hand, will put me down. I can’t speak to any of the OTC, herbal, or prescription remedies–haven’t used them.
Yeah, just make sure you set down the glass of milk before you start the book, otherwise you might spill on yourself when Brown puts you out like a trank dart.
The thing that’s been working for me recently is linden/lime tea. I can be wide awake when I drink it, but within about half an hour of drinking it, I’m ready for bed, and I sleep all through the night, rather than waking up every couple of hours. Sage tea has a similar effect.
I’m not advocating the use of illegal substances, but since you asked, when I smoke just a little bit of marijuana before bed I sleep very soundly – whereas usually, I wake up two or three times a night.
There’s a “tea lady” at my local farmer’s market that blends her own herbal teas. She makes a tea blend with valerian, chamomile, wood betony, and a couple other things that I can’t recall off the top of my head. I brew a good strong cup of that half an hour or so before I want to sleep and I’m out for the night. It’s not that it makes me fall asleep any faster–I don’t really have problems falling asleep, my problem is staying asleep through the night and not waking up at three in the morning. It keeps me in deep REM sleep and I feel great in the morning. No grogginess at all.
I should say that this tea is nothing like the valerian blends available in the store.
Oh, now you mention it, NajaNivea, I’ve also had decent luck with damiana tea about 1/2 hour before bedtime.
A friend put me on to it after advising me that while it’s marketed as an aphrodisiac, all it’s ever done for her is put her to sleep. I gave it a shot and she’s right - zero aphrodisiac properties (unless you include 'I finally got some sleep, so now sex doesn’t seem completely out of the question) but a really decent deep sleep.
Natural sunlight. If it is dark I’ll be wide awake, but the second the sun comes up I’ll get amazingly refreshing sleep. The years at work of creeping around in the dark of night have fried any non-nocternal instincts I may have once had.
For many years I had to get up early so it became a habit to still wake up at the same time; even though I am retired I would go to bed late but still wake at the same time.
My doctor recommended that I do some excersise every day (Like walking or working in the yard), then to do something boring until I felt sleepy,so I do some yard work or walk during the day, then at night I get bathed for bed, play computer games that I amost always win, and when I get so sleepy that I can barely make it to bed I fall asleep and seldom get up in the night. I sleep 2 hours later then I used to as well.
Monavis
One very helpful bit of advice I was given for times when I have trouble falling asleep is to think about a dream I’ve had. The more recent, the better, but even an older dream can help. You don’t have to remember the plot or anything, just a flashbulb moment of the dream is good enough. Concentrate on what you can remember. If it was a street scene, for instance, were there cars in the background? Try to remember one of them. And so on, just keep thinking about whatever you can in the dream’s universe.
It seems that trying to access dream memories is often enough to cue the brain to switch over to nighty-night mode. So far it has only failed me once and I am usually amazed the next morning by how quickly it put me to sleep.
I have a paper written on the identification and classification of “dust” written in 1977. It was part of my museum study course. As you can guess it is jam packed with adventure, witty pirates, naked women and explosions.
Actually, I also associate it with the professor who wrote it, and used to subject us to long passages of it in a drone like adenoidal monotone just slightly off key.
We actually called it “the paper sleeping pill”
Once and a while, when I can’t sleep I pull it out… Zonked and sawing logs in less than 3 minutes usually…
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