I usually fall asleep very quickly. Yes, having some kind of anxiety about the next day or such can keep me up and sometimes there’s a night where I just don’t seem to fall asleep instantly by myself.

Rule number one: Keep your bed the place you sleep in. Don’t do anything else in it. You can’t fall asleep because of anxiety? Get up, go somewhere else, try to deal with it/calm down and then get back to sleep.

If you don’t know why you can’t fall asleep, get up, try to wind down a bit. Maybe drink a little bit of water, go to the toilet, whatever then come back and try again. Try to keep the lights off or as dimmed as possible in that time.

Sometimes if that doesn’t help, you can use some relaxation techniques to help. My go to: Lay down, find a comfy spot. The easiest: Focus on you I this moment. How does it feel in your bed? Focus on the warm fluffy place you’re in. “Feel” how you sink in more and more into your pillow and mattress with every breath. Usually that’s enough to get me to sleep. If you can’t fall asleep doing this, go a bit further. Imagine you’re in a meadow/on a beach/wherever in nature. Feel the imaginary sun on your skin. The sand/gras/moss/… Under your bare feet. Breathe the fresh air. Focus on your imaginary sensations and observe them.

Those imaginations can be hard if you’re not used to them. It’s OK if you’re not focused on them in the beginning and that some random ideas and thoughts cross your mind and keep breaking the illusion. Find a way to deal with them. Accept that it has happened and move on. My preferred way to “block them”: imagine a red heavy curtain falling like in a theater completely blocking your view of those thoughts/images. Acknowledge that you identified and consciously ignored them, “turn around” and return your focus to your imagination.

I appreciate this well written comment that seems to address all my issues lol

I have what I self proclaim a “float switch”. Once my head tilts a 45 degree angle, I fall asleep. I’ve been like this all my 39 years of existence. I cannot go to these new movie theaters labeled “Dream Lounger Ultra XL” with those reclining king size sofas because I can’t justify paying $30 to take a nap.

My wife gets mad at me how fast I fall asleep. I can’t fucking help it!

Would you fall asleep if someone physically placed you horizontal or tilted your head back lol

Like flipping a shark over and making it stupor.

Just looked that up, interesting phenomenon for what we see as an apex predator. Even more crazy is what I read after the definition of tonic immobility lol

“In 1997, an Orca in the Farallon Islands was seen holding a White Shark upside down for 15 minutes. Whether intentional or not, the Orca likely caused the shark to enter tonic immobility. Defenceless, the shark, suffocated. This also happened again in 2000.”

Nature is crazy

I avoid screens (with one exception mentioned in a bit)—especially social media (including fediverse)—for like an hour ahead of time, read a book, make sure I’m well fed and hydrated without eating too close to bedtime, wear a sleep mask, and put on some soothing music, podcast or (mostly audio-based) video—with the screen off as soon as I hit play. Sometimes I even resort to my noise-cancelling headphones—or earplugs, if the sounds of my own breathing, swallowing, and bloodflow don’t bother me too much that night. It helps to meditate and/or make sure to exercise/work hard enough to wear myself out each day.

Comfort helps. Finding the right position, having the right sheets, mattress, pillow, getting the ac/fan/heater so the room feels perfect, maybe cracking a window for fresh air. Feeling secure and safe where I’m sleeping, confident that I’ll make it through the night without rude awakenings. Each isn’t very powerful on its own, bit all together make a big difference in how readily I drift off.

Finally, I just try not to worry too much whether I fall asleep or not; if it’s not looking like it’s happening, I’ll try to write a story for myself or draw a masterpiece in my minds eye. If that doesn’t work, I’ll focus on invoking some Wake-Induced Lucid Dreaming instead: forcing myself to lie perfectly still with my eyes closed, not even shifting for comfort nor to scratch itches nor swat flies, letting my mind wander wherever it wants to and just going with the hypnagogic hallucinations (they can get a little uncomfortable at times). This rarely has the intended effect, but I usually do end up waking up later, realizing I fell asleep without knowing it.

Disclaimer: my routine won’t solve insomnia, it won’t fix neurological disorders that affect circadian rhythm, it probably won’t work on the first night even if you don’t have the aforementioned issues. But adding any part of it to your routine (if you can) will make it just that much easier to fall sleep, when you can get around to it, even if you do have underlying conditions.

Also, at the risk of sounding like a boomer, screens are really bad for sleep. I grew up with them: my family had a habit of watching tv until bedtime, I trained myself to fall asleep while staring at my laptop (which I often have on my bed), or I’ll pick up my phone after I put the laptop down. Nowadays I can feel how awake my brain gets when I check lemmy or read news around bedtime. If I have my phone near me, I’ll have this nagging feeling to do “just one more” check of all my socials.

And it always keeps me awake until I will myself to turn it off and close my eyes.

I used to be able to do this…I’m not saying diabetes stopped it, but I got diabetes and stopped being able to do it.

Idk it’s like I just wake up the next day

If you’re lucky

It’s a ritual. The secret for me is basically counting sheep. Except, I don’t actually count sheep, but there’s lots of other things. Nowadays I can just clear my mind, but that was not always so.

When I was a kid, I had trouble sleeping. I was scared of the dark or something. So I closed my eyes and started focussing on the shapes I saw to take my mind off it. It were basic geometric shapes in different colors that floated to the edge of my vision. Than new ones would pop up. That helped and eventually I was using that methid every day to fall asleep fast.

In my teenage years I was into “lucid dreaming”. Never managed to really do that, but they use special methods to fall asleep which also create some kind of ritual. Like looking at your alarm until you fall asleep. And than when it shows weird numbers, you know you’re asleep, but that part is speculative lol.

Like that there are a few otger “rituals” you can try. I think tge most important part is a semi regular sleep schedule and a ritual. Also, don’t watch tv or phone in bed. That’s the kind of ritual to prevents you from sleeping.

Alcohol.

I’ve heard that most people sleep worse on Alcohol I guess it depends on your genes.

I didn’t say I sleep good, but I do sleep fast!

I find that alcohol makes me feel sleepy/drowsy, but actually keeps me awake. I just lie in bed for hours feeling sleepy but not asleep. Good that it works for you though (/maybe find a way to fall asleep that’s better for you lol)

Genetics

The steering wheel however…

“I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming and in agony like all of his passengers.”

Hey, I can do it in minutes. Just, like, 90-120 of them.

Vitamin D deficiency

Ive always had trouble sleeping, too active an imagination I suppose. So for me the trick was drugs, they work a treat… Maybe too much of a treat.

One year old child.

Wake up early and exercise at least 30 min. Makes me feel actually tired at the end of the day so it’s easier to fall asleep. Exercising later on the day doesn’t work because it amps me up.

I day dream until I fall asleep, and it takes less than a minute. Doesn’t matter if I just had a coffee, browsing a phone or whatever.

I like to think about designing something. What I’d do on a isolated island, designing the cockpit in a space craft or building a self sufficient homestead. Fiction stuff. Everything is possible. It doesn’t work if I think about actual real life problems.

This is what I’ve realized. I just close my eyes and let my mind wander as if I am dreaming. I’m never aware of the transition, but I know I’m not pretending to dream for long.

I read for a bit until I get sleepy. Usually takes 30-45 minutes. Having a consistent bedtime helps a lot too. On the rare occasions I can’t sleep I’ll take a melatonin but that stuff makes me have nightmares.

Train yourself. Pavlov’s sleep. Every time you go to bed, watch/listen to the same thing. Eventually, your brain associate the thing with “time to sleep”. That’s how it works for me, anyway. I turn on the same movie and pass out in minutes. Don’t do it with one of your favorites, though.

And also, don’t do things like lay in bed watching TV or messing with your phone all the time. You want the bed to be mostly mentally associated with sleep

My “thing” is a Hercules movie from Mystery Science Theater 3000. Those movies are so low intensity, and I’ve fallen asleep to them hundreds of times over the past few years. I put a sleep timer on my ancient iPad on low brightness and low volume for 15m, and I’m usually asleep before time’s up.

Fun story, i used to do a lot of fly-in/out for a mine close to the artic circle which involved getting stuck on loud propeller planes for hours.

At some point, I realised that I could fall asleep before take-off but rarely during. Unintentionnally, I trained myself to fall asleep before takeoff.

Now, I just fall asleep before takeoff in any plane which makes my wife mad when she is excited to travel somewhere and I just doze off …

The only time I’m able to fall asleep with something playing is when I’m majorly sleep deprived or I’m sick. My brain can’t turn off when it’s by itself, much less when there’s something playing. If my brain is being handed information, I’m immediately wide awake for it.

I did this with the original Twilight Zone episodes! As soon as I hear that iconic intro I feel tired. It doesn’t work perfectly and I sometimes still have trouble sleeping but it helped a lot. It took years of doing this. I picked Twilight Zone because it’s interesting enough to turn on but not interesting enough to stay awake for.

I have seen every episode hundreds of times at this point I bet.

My husband does this!! He watches this episode of Bobs Burgers every night. It works for him. Its his comfort episode

Self control mostly. I was taught to meditate by doing nothing but sitting, eyes closed, counting my breaths. It gave me a strong control over my thoughts. Now if I want to sleep, I lie down and turn my brain off. I’m out in a few minutes if it’s not too hot.

I used to take at least an hour to fall asleep. Then I had two kids. I can now fall asleep within a minute or two.

Worth it.

In my head i’m making a “movie”. I make the same “movie” pretty much for 30 years now. I didn’t got really far at all, i always start from the beginning and usually fall asleep bevore i reach the end of my already existing script. During the day or before i go to bed, i sometimes think about things that could happen in the “movie” later on, but i usually never make it that far. I often end up tweaking the beginning over and over until i fall asleep. It hardly ever takes me longer than 5 - 20min to fall asleep.

I kind of do that too, only I don’t start from the start each time. Mine’s just an ongoing thing that’s been going for years now.

Parenthood. You reach the point of pure exhaustion somewhere around 6 months. Depending on your child, it can last for years.

I have separated my living space into “zones” in my head. When I am awake, I am not allowed in the sleeping zone, aka my bed. By only being in my bed when I am going to sleep, I have trained my body that it is the “sleeping place.”

I’m an introverted person who finds people exhausting, and I’m around people all day long. I hit some kind of point of extreme burnout about three years ago and things never let up, so I’m functional pretty much all the time but if I get any peace and quiet for more than about 30 seconds I just pass out indefinitely until someone wakes me up again lol.

CBTI is the answer to everyone’s inability to sleep. Cognitive behavioral therapy (Insomnia) it’s worth looking up and learning about, if you can’t get there alone it’s worth finding a CBTI therapist if sleep is that problematic

I’m happy it (presumably) worked for you, but be mindful that some people don’t benefit from CBT, either due to it being ineffective or suffering from other issues. I’ve been to several courses, and it’s interesting how it spins your understanding of sleep on its head. It’s also crazy how fast new things get introduced in the years I’ve taken it.

I wish I could vouch for how effective it is on ‘falling asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow’. It seems others in group sessions find that it’s better/restful sleep, but not necessarily instant. But the people I’m usually grouped with have aggressive forms of insomnia.

Pot.

Waking up early everyday, and getting stoney mcstone stoned about an hour before bed each night. Fucking bliss.

ADHD…two minutes tops. Could even gulp down a litre of energy drinks or coffee right before. And I even have to force myself real hard to go to bed at around 3-4am. Otherwise I would just stay awake in my hobbies another day 😁

ASMR. Every night. I’m out in 30 minutes or less. Praise be to Lucy Harper of the YouTube channel Creative Calm. Her videos have been helping me (and I’m sure many others) sleep for over a decade

For me, most importantly I lay in bed with my eyes closed those are the two big prerequisites to sleep. If you’re getting out of bed or keeping your eyes open to use your phone or whatever, of course you’re not gonna get to sleep.

From there, what I do doesn’t matter much. I think about stuff, make up a story, just imagine a bunch of swirly lights and patterns, doesn’t much matter. Keep your eyes closed and eventually sleep happens.

The times I fall asleep quickest are days where I’ve been out in the sun. Doesn’t matter if it’s intense yard work, or relaxing on an inner tube, the sun takes it out of me and I don’t even want to open my phone before bed.

Had insomia in highschool. Didn’t know what it was but taught myself guided meditation to overcome it.

For me, it was usually a song being stuck in my head. I would see myself floating up and away from the earth amd into space where the void was silent.

I also learned to pay attention to the mental “feel” I had while driftong off to sleep and pictured myself sinking into sleep like a submarine beneath the waves.

I know these aren’t super helpful descriptions because if I could really verbalise and teach it I would be doing that for a living.

I have also had great results with meditation aiding my sleep. For me it was mindfulness meditation, and recognizing when my mind was buzzing or going in circles, then letting the thoughts go and coming back to my breath or just observing my empty mind and watching for the first sign of a thought.

For years I was hugely skeptical that saying words in my mind would make a difference, but when I tried a sleep meditation, like a yoga nidra, mentally saying things like “i have nothing else to do, and nowhere else to be. i am here to relax.” really helped. also, when my mind starts going off on a crazy line of thought and i recognize it, i can usually get it to stop by mentally saying “i can think about this tomorrow.” i’m still amazed that it even works. the idea that you can so easily trick (or i guess vocally control?) your own mind just sounds ridiculous. I suppose though that different minds work differently, and the mental words may not work for everybody, or not all the time.

• Erster Detektiv: Justus Jonas

• Zweiter Detektiv: Peter Shaw

• Recherche und Archiv: Bob Andrews

It doesn’t work every time (I am very much not someone that can just switch off), but I have found “floor time” to help as a method of meditating. Initially I was just doing stretches of time for the sake of countering being slumped posture all day without a specific intention of being a sleep aid. Some of us randomly do it on the cold floor at work if physically stressed out, which is why I thought to try it at home in the dark.

Tend to either have some long form video play that I have watched before and find nice for sound, or put buds in and set like a 20~30min sleep timer for podcast episodes I like and marked to never delete in a favorites section of the app. Ended up also finding some buds (Soundcore Sleep A10 for anyone that wants to know) that can auto-stop playback if they detect sleep (guessing they use like a heart-rate sensor). So they can act as an additional stop if I fall asleep before the actual sleep timer (sadly I have misplaced them ATM). Which help silence my own thoughts, and anchor onto the audio (and thoughts get kept to the video/podcast). And use the timer to formerly end the “floor time” or to avoid losing my place.

Only other thing I try to allow myself to drift into thinking about is if I feel like I have tensed-up or periodic moving my head to each side for a few mins each to stretch my neck. I just stare into the back of my eyelids, but sometimes the darkness of the room (or into something covering my eyes) for times that staring into the back of my eyelids feels weirdly stressful in the same way a staring contest does when open (very annoying feeling).

I have a high level (in my understanding) of Aphantasia, which for people that haven’t heard of it, is not being able to “see” imaginations like folks that talk about “imagine a ball of light” or other guided things. Not fully lacking complete ability to “see” things, but ranging from only the idea (nothing) to extremely quick flashes of mostly super low details. So I try to learn how to focus on keeping the flashes a little longer and “see” simple things or pull the image of the room as I would be seeing it from my spot on the floor if my eyes were open. Made some progress here and there, while still not being able to do it outside of these times. Which I think might be helping me start to nod-off into really light sleep where dreams are close to starting.

Which can slip into that weird sudden falling feeling people have sometimes before fully falling asleep. However even if that happens, I can use that as a stopping point for “floor time” and move into the bed and fall asleep soon after. As my mind/body are much closer to whatever state needed for going over the edge of sleep. If the “falling” thing doesn’t happen, I might reach a slightly deeper sleep where I am dreaming but can either still hear the show/podcast in the dream or it is influencing the dream to some in the short time I nod-off.

Be tired enough. I jave ADHD and my strategy is to stay up until I am literally falling asleep. The next day can be tough sometimes though if I need to get up early. On those nights I just take Melatonin

Finishing a project at 2am. I should goto bed

ADHD Brain: Hear me out! What if we start another project?

Sometime around 5am I realize what time it is.

Easy, I wake up three hours later and toss and turn or give up and read.

A strict wake-up time that’s the same every day helps. I put the alarm far away from my bed so I have no choice to drift back off.

All the usual tips apply; a cool room, no blue light at night, no distractions in the bedroom, get up for a while if it’s not working…

I only use my bed for sleeping, when I go lie down body knows it’s night night time

As someone who used to be like that but now has a real fucked up sleep schedule due to unemployment, I can tell you the deciding factor is a consistent sleep period. The vast majority of my career has been waking up at 4am and going to sleep at 8 or 9pm. Thats easy to fall into and even when you’re off your body just knows when its time to sleep and when its time to get up. Ive gotten up on time a few times despite the alarms failing to go off for whatever reason. You want good sleep? Set wake up and bedtime. Your body will adjust.

Children.

I there a powdered form I can take it in or is this like an adrenochrome situation?

You’ve got to harvest them at your nearest pizzagate parlour. If you’re U.K. like me, we’ve only got one branch, the Pizza Express in Woking.

Ah, no problem. My buddy Hil-dog can hook me up.

Easy-peasy. No sweat.

I lay down, close my eyes, and then in my mind I imagine slowly pushing all sensation down to my feet starting from my head while I slow my breathing. I’m usually out before I even get to my knees.

Narcolepsy - a blessing and a curse.

I’ve had problems with insomnia in the past.

I generally find the easiest way for me to sleep is to be very physically tired.

I’ve always been this way, but every so often I still have trouble turning my thoughts off enough to get to sleep.

There’s a technique I use on those occasions that helps a lot. Basically, just try to imagine a shape - it could be a circle or a sphere or a triangle or whatever - and just try to rotate it in your head. Pick a colour too. Try to keep it going. Any time you lose focus because another thought takes over, try to get the shape back.

Is this something you thought up yourself? I’ve never heard of this technique before but it sounds like it would be really good for meditating

Similar. For me it’s finding something just difficult enough to keep focus on but not so much as to keep me awake. People have told me to clear my head of thoughts, but that doesn’t work, so i crowd them out.

Counting sheep is too easy. Try counting in base 2: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. If that doesn’t work, try Fibonacci: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 (keep adding the previous 2 numbers.) If you are visual, do the shapes or imagine every branch of a tree.

weed

I tire my brain out, whenever I lay down, I dont want to move at all, I fall asleep in whatevery uncomfy position dehydrated

Use a chair when doing anything productive, when laying down avoid using your phone at all, wait til your eyes glaze basically

Some things that help me at least:

• Only use bed for sleeping.
• Don’t use screens at least an hour before bed.
• Keep phone out of arms reach when in bed. Ideally in another room (these devices weigh heavy on our psychology, and the further they are from us, the less distracting they are).
• Leave blinds open at night so you wake up with the sun. Try to sync your body / circadian rhythm with your environment if possible.
• Get lots of walks and outside time during the day. If you have a lot of energy, work out more during the day.
• No coffee / intoxicants in the evening.
• Drink lots of water.
• Don’t try to fix your sleep problems at night. Most of your remedies should be getting on the right foot the next day, and making habits of those.

My husband can do that, and honestly I think it’s because he doesn’t sleep deeply enough, and gets up too early. So exhaustion works.

I fall asleep in a reasonable amount of time (satisfied with it) and exercise is the main thing I can tell helps me. Next most important I wait until I am actually sleepy before trying to sleep. Smaller factors but still helpful - progesterone (post menopause) before bed, putting down the phone an hour before bed, and a routine - I take a shower & do skincare.

I got old.

I doubt you’re actually old, because that’s not how it usually works.

Addressing Sleep Problems in Older Adults

As many as 57% of older adults complain of major disruption of sleep, 29% struggle to fall asleep and 19% complain of early-morning awakening.

Not old and yes very true older adults naturally sleep less. But my sleep has changed significantly since I have aged.

Did you have trouble falling asleep before this chronic and terminal illness hit?

I did!! I used to lay awake and struggle to fall asleep. I also used to be okay as a college student and gamer getting 4 hours of sleep.

Thus, no more. I got a job I actively work 8+ hours and when I lay down now I KO within 5 mins and sometimes mid conversation with my husband.

I of course want to leave you with more tangible things to try.

Once, with my friends, we went to a spa with a salt room. Best nap I have ever had in my life. I was then inspired to improve my quality of sleep and these worked for me:

• Sleep face mask (I dont know if weight makes a difference?. Mine is unweighted)
• Weighted blanket. Make sure to look up the math on your size and weight needed
• Quality bed. (Nolah)
• Quality pillow (Coops Home Goods Pillow)
• If all else fails, reading in bed puts me to sleep.

I swear I’m an adult but my friends and I also have adult sleep overs lol. I have found some use white noise machine, ear plugs are among some things I haven’t tried but works for them.

Good luck on your sleep journey!

you wont like this answer:
sometimes** start your day by wakeing up at 3am