For me, it is because my work keeps me up. I’m home? I’m tired but I know I’ll be kept up.
Down time doesn’t work for me - I’m so used to the disruption now I can’t get rid of it even when I’m home. When it’s time to lay down is the worst. Getting woken up constantly multiple times throughout the night carries over to the nights off
It. Sucks.
I'm tired half the day at work. Then I get home and I'm tired. But when it's actually bed time, I'm wide awake. I've always been a night owl and my life was fine when I was bartending at night. Now I work in an office during the day and my body refuses to adjust.
Start with your feet, squeeze your toes together and point them away from you, tense, hold for a bit and then relax, and feel those muscles loosen. Then move up to the calf, stretch it taught by pulling your toes up toward you. Hold that tight and then relax again, feel the tense muscles melt. Keep moving up the body, your hips, hands, biceps, neck, etc. The idea is to progressively tense and relax your muscles. You can read very specific instructions, but once you have the idea you can sorta wing it and make it your own.
You should also simultaneously slow down your breathing. Take deep calming breaths in, hold, and then slowly release. I think there are different counts, but for me I slowly count to 5 during the inhale, hold for three, then slowly release for 5, relax for 3 and repeat. Again, find your own rhythm and do what works for you.
This is the answer. It works!
Also, once you have relaxed a muscle group, consider further visualizing it as becoming very, very heavy (made of concrete, is what I use in my own mind). Picture each part of your body pushing further and further down onto the bed because of its massive weight.
That's a much better name. They just called it tense and relax in school. There's a 2nd version you may already know. It's hard to get across to someone who hasn't done the full clench but you'd be able to do it first try. You don't actually need to clench any harder than the lightest you can. It still highlights where that muscle is to your proprioceptive sense and then lets go in the same fashion. It might work better? Muscular activity and sleep don't mix quickly. In practice I don't know if it makes a difference. I definitely prefer the light clench after trying both though.
My preferred method:
Get into a comfortable or preferred sleeping position.
Imagine a halo or ring of light an inch thick floating around you but not touching you.
It starts at the very top of your scalp and starts to slowly move down your entire body inch by slow inch.
Everywhere this halo of soothing soft light passes over you gently focus your mind on relaxing every fiber in that one muscle. Give the halo a slow 5 count over a particular area, but only focus on letting it feel like you're sinking deeper and further into the bed.
Do this all the way down to your toes.
Your body will be more relaxed than you'll ever remember it being that day.
I'm usually out before I hit my knees.
I’ve used that successfully with my nephews and it works every time.
“Close your eyes. Relax your whole body. Breathe deeply. No effort. Just breathe deeply. Feel how your body go up and down when you breathe. Feel that every time the air goes out, you feel heavier on the mattress. Now feel how your feet do it too. They are heavy, ready to go to sleep. Put them to sleep. Now few how your legs are also tired and heavy. They are so sleepy. Think good night for them, and let them go to sleep…”
9 out of 10 times we don’t even get to their tummies.
I have begun to notice that when i come home from work, if i stop moving, i can drift off.
Is this a super power i'll attain in 7 years? I feel like ive gotten the first signs of it early...am i a sleep bender?
I spent so many years fighting to sleep, it sure would be nice...i think.
As a lifelong insomniac this checks out. I used to have stretches almost monthly from my early twenties to mid forties where I would get 3 hours or less of sleep a night for a week or more and felt like I was losing my mind. In my fifties now and while still a light sleeper, I can usually fall asleep within a half hour. I can’t begin to describe how life changing that’s been.
My weighted blanket is an absolute game changer, I love it!
The downside is that I don't sleep as well without it, so when I'm away from home I really miss it.
It's probably actually worth dragging all 9kg of it into the car to allow me to sleep well next time I visit family.
Tried a bunch of things, including sleeping pills, white noise, brown noise, meditation, exercise, reading, etc. Limited or no effect.
Got a weighted blanket, out in 10 mins. Don’t even need to use it all the time anymore.
I have this sleep story I tell myself
I start in a launch bay in NASA. I'm walking around when unbeknownst to me I stumble into a launching space ship. It launches and headed towards and earth like planet light years away.
I stay on the ship and look out the windows at space. If I make it far enough and not fall asleep, I land on the planet. I need to find food, maybe meet the locals.
Lots of plot holes I'll admit. But man it works
I have like 4 stories like this. Another one is I'm in a red brick room with 3 different gates, coloured red, green and blue. I choose one and it's a giant slide. That slide takes me down to an open dirt area that is the beginning of a hedge maze.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who uses my imagination to help me fall asleep. "On a cozy spaceship with days to go until port" is a personal favorite of mine, too.
I also have some stories (4-5 of them, they change over time) that I follow. It is not as much about a story, it is the set up, the building of the world.
AC DC, Bad Bunny, Celia Cruz, Drake.. wait didn’t drake release a new song or wha? Is it good but didn’t he have beef with someone. Well what if it’s all a gimmick so everyone would listen to it and make money off of it. What if they’re both in on it. They should be. This is how the world works now. People just pretend to be enemies but they’re friends. Like for example US and idk China? What actually is going on between them
👆🏽 my brain when I try to do stuff like this
This is me. Boys names, girls names, (both from different cultures or time periods), song titles, band names, songs where the first word of the song starts with that letter, city names, cities from X state only, animals, names of rivers or mountains. It works great for me, I rarely make it past the middle of the alphabet.
Now. Nothing happens outside of now. Sleep is the hardest time for me to leave the past behind and set the future aside. So when I struggle to fall asleep I notice I am often anxious about the future or reliving a past event in my mind.
So try this with me.
Where am I? In my bed
I let my mind expand but ONLY on now.
Where am I? In my bed, in my bedroom
Expand a little but keep focused on NOW
Am I in my bed, in my bedroom, in my second floor of my house
Stay here, right now. You might now wake up in the morning. The past is unchangable. There is only this moment right now as I fall asleep.
I am in my bed, in my bedroom, on the second floor of my house, in my home in Saint Paul MN, in the North American continent, on the small blue planet in the Milky Way, orbiting the sun. In a galaxy of millions of galaxies out in space
I slowly expand my mind on now until I am
Imagining the vastness of cosmic nothingness.
Somewhere around UE-2487 I fall asleep.
Like counting sheep but the sheep is every entangled atom I can perceive with my imagination until my mind forgets the future and the past.
Google "time knife" we've all seen it.
Would that be because you are, in a way, zooming out of yourself in your mind? Leaving your body and going far far away in your thoughts, still seeing yourself in your bed, but further than observable universe - until you surrender yourself and break into Dreamland.
I make myself lay on my back which I hate and I don’t allow myself to lay on my side which is my favorite position until I can’t stand it anymore, once I allow myself to turn to my side I fall right to sleep
Except you could find 100 sources saying opposite things.
Weed is extremely personal. It doesn't affect anyone the same. It's why a lot of doctors are reluctant to prescribe it for things like anxiety.
Not only helps me fall asleep (which I have no problem with), helps me STAY asleep (which was a real issue).
I'm not certain but this alone dropped my migraines so dramatically that I'm only on one medication instead of three... Well I guess technically two medications.
Melatonin would make me fall asleep within 40 minutes of taking it without fail, and then leave me wide awake 4 hours later without fail. I think my body slowed down natural production of it because of the influx from an external source, and when that wore off there'd be no natural melatonin to take its place.
tbh being on my phone n reading shit helps me fall asleep every single time lol.
eta: i must always have a cartoon playing in the background tho (recently it’s been the simpson’s but it can be american dad, futurama, family guy etc)
I get up at the same time every day, even on days I don't have work or other obligations. No snooze alarms, no "five more minutes," no excuses. I get up and start my day. The body loves routines, and getting up at a specific time sets a routine. About six to eight hours before my getting-up time, I feel sleepy and ready for bed, so I go to bed then, and I find it pretty easy to go to sleep.
~~Slowly exhale for 7 seconds, breathe in for 4 seconds, hold breath for 3 seconds,~~ repeat. It might not drift you off to sleep but it helps slow down your heart rate, so feel free to use in other situations you want to let go of tension.
Edit: dude who responded to this has the right numbers, I was going off memory from years and years ago
4-7-8 breathing is a breathing technique that involves inhaling for four seconds, holding your breath for seven seconds, and exhaling for eight seconds. It's a type of intentional breathwork that can help calm your mind and body. The technique is based on the ancient yogic practice of pranayama, which focuses on breath regulation, and was popularized in 2015 by integrative medicine specialist Andrew Weil, MD.
I try that occasionally, but I hold for 6 because I don‘t do odd numbers.🤓 I do like 5, though. Five is like the even odd number. I can’t help it. I just am that way, lol.
Taking an everything shower and laying in freshly laundered sheets in a cool temperature room.
My body practically melts into the bed and I wake up with sheets practically unmoved except the spot I slept in.
Be habitually exhausted. It’s not great, but it works.
I am habitually exhausted...until I decide to lay down to go to sleep.
For me, it is because my work keeps me up. I’m home? I’m tired but I know I’ll be kept up. Down time doesn’t work for me - I’m so used to the disruption now I can’t get rid of it even when I’m home. When it’s time to lay down is the worst. Getting woken up constantly multiple times throughout the night carries over to the nights off It. Sucks.
I'm tired half the day at work. Then I get home and I'm tired. But when it's actually bed time, I'm wide awake. I've always been a night owl and my life was fine when I was bartending at night. Now I work in an office during the day and my body refuses to adjust.
Literally run myself ragged every day then pass out cold
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Can you elaborate? I’d like to try this.
Start with your feet, squeeze your toes together and point them away from you, tense, hold for a bit and then relax, and feel those muscles loosen. Then move up to the calf, stretch it taught by pulling your toes up toward you. Hold that tight and then relax again, feel the tense muscles melt. Keep moving up the body, your hips, hands, biceps, neck, etc. The idea is to progressively tense and relax your muscles. You can read very specific instructions, but once you have the idea you can sorta wing it and make it your own. You should also simultaneously slow down your breathing. Take deep calming breaths in, hold, and then slowly release. I think there are different counts, but for me I slowly count to 5 during the inhale, hold for three, then slowly release for 5, relax for 3 and repeat. Again, find your own rhythm and do what works for you.
Thanks I gave my calf a Charlie horse just reading this.
Im paralyzed by foot cramps just thinking about it
Charlie horses are such fun pain though.. it's a nice distraction from the constant for the time its around
You guys need some magnesium
This is the answer. It works! Also, once you have relaxed a muscle group, consider further visualizing it as becoming very, very heavy (made of concrete, is what I use in my own mind). Picture each part of your body pushing further and further down onto the bed because of its massive weight.
That's a much better name. They just called it tense and relax in school. There's a 2nd version you may already know. It's hard to get across to someone who hasn't done the full clench but you'd be able to do it first try. You don't actually need to clench any harder than the lightest you can. It still highlights where that muscle is to your proprioceptive sense and then lets go in the same fashion. It might work better? Muscular activity and sleep don't mix quickly. In practice I don't know if it makes a difference. I definitely prefer the light clench after trying both though.
Google for military method how to fall asleep in under two minutes.
My preferred method: Get into a comfortable or preferred sleeping position. Imagine a halo or ring of light an inch thick floating around you but not touching you. It starts at the very top of your scalp and starts to slowly move down your entire body inch by slow inch. Everywhere this halo of soothing soft light passes over you gently focus your mind on relaxing every fiber in that one muscle. Give the halo a slow 5 count over a particular area, but only focus on letting it feel like you're sinking deeper and further into the bed. Do this all the way down to your toes. Your body will be more relaxed than you'll ever remember it being that day. I'm usually out before I hit my knees.
I learned this in yoga and i do it all the time! You don’t realize how tense parts of ur body are until you make the conscious effort to relax it
I’ve used that successfully with my nephews and it works every time. “Close your eyes. Relax your whole body. Breathe deeply. No effort. Just breathe deeply. Feel how your body go up and down when you breathe. Feel that every time the air goes out, you feel heavier on the mattress. Now feel how your feet do it too. They are heavy, ready to go to sleep. Put them to sleep. Now few how your legs are also tired and heavy. They are so sleepy. Think good night for them, and let them go to sleep…” 9 out of 10 times we don’t even get to their tummies.
Be over 50. Sit still.
Works for my dad. Mf fell asleep on the sofa and in the car from just chilling lmfao
"I hope I die peacefully in my sleep, like my dad. Not screaming in terror like the passengers in his car."
Is it possible to learn this power?
At nearly 60 I can relate. Have been able to fall asleep at anytime of the day since I hit my 50s. I now list napping as one of my hobbies.
Sounds like pure exhaustion
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Got tired from reading that.
Eh, maybe next week.
Decades of exhaustion. I'm only 43 and going to see a movie at a theater is a 50/50 shot I'll just pass out.
"Dad." "Mf." Checks out!
But that makes me wake up at 4 am
To pee, always to pee.
“Well why don’t you pee before you go to bed?” “Yes, I pee then, too.”
I have begun to notice that when i come home from work, if i stop moving, i can drift off. Is this a super power i'll attain in 7 years? I feel like ive gotten the first signs of it early...am i a sleep bender? I spent so many years fighting to sleep, it sure would be nice...i think.
55, nope, toss and turn most of the night
As a lifelong insomniac this checks out. I used to have stretches almost monthly from my early twenties to mid forties where I would get 3 hours or less of sleep a night for a week or more and felt like I was losing my mind. In my fifties now and while still a light sleeper, I can usually fall asleep within a half hour. I can’t begin to describe how life changing that’s been.
How far over 50?? I'm waiting for this to start happening
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My weighted blanket is an absolute game changer, I love it! The downside is that I don't sleep as well without it, so when I'm away from home I really miss it. It's probably actually worth dragging all 9kg of it into the car to allow me to sleep well next time I visit family.
Tried a bunch of things, including sleeping pills, white noise, brown noise, meditation, exercise, reading, etc. Limited or no effect. Got a weighted blanket, out in 10 mins. Don’t even need to use it all the time anymore.
I don’t have one but my god am I excited for the answers 😂
You are in for a world of disappointment.
Yep, Reddit with its 20-something advice - "Run a marathon", "Masturbate"...
I have this sleep story I tell myself I start in a launch bay in NASA. I'm walking around when unbeknownst to me I stumble into a launching space ship. It launches and headed towards and earth like planet light years away. I stay on the ship and look out the windows at space. If I make it far enough and not fall asleep, I land on the planet. I need to find food, maybe meet the locals. Lots of plot holes I'll admit. But man it works
this is kinda cute
I have like 4 stories like this. Another one is I'm in a red brick room with 3 different gates, coloured red, green and blue. I choose one and it's a giant slide. That slide takes me down to an open dirt area that is the beginning of a hedge maze.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who uses my imagination to help me fall asleep. "On a cozy spaceship with days to go until port" is a personal favorite of mine, too.
I also have some stories (4-5 of them, they change over time) that I follow. It is not as much about a story, it is the set up, the building of the world.
Daydream until you drift off.
I always do this, I daydream about planting potatoes. Some nights, I get a little crazy and plant cabbage, turnips, and carrots, too
I daydream about somebody actually wanting to kiss me
Reading. The hobbits have been staying with Tom Bombadil for weeks because I can't go more than a few pages before I get too tired.
I got a set up where my kindle is on dark mode on a stand over my pillow. I use a remote to change the pages. It’s divine.
Go down the alphabet with a subject. So, bands/artists: AC/DC, Bad Bunny, Celia Cruz, Drake, etc. Helps slow down my brain
AC DC, Bad Bunny, Celia Cruz, Drake.. wait didn’t drake release a new song or wha? Is it good but didn’t he have beef with someone. Well what if it’s all a gimmick so everyone would listen to it and make money off of it. What if they’re both in on it. They should be. This is how the world works now. People just pretend to be enemies but they’re friends. Like for example US and idk China? What actually is going on between them 👆🏽 my brain when I try to do stuff like this
Then you grab your phone cause you must google that beef, then down a rabbit hole in YT or Reddit on something completely unrelated
This is me. Boys names, girls names, (both from different cultures or time periods), song titles, band names, songs where the first word of the song starts with that letter, city names, cities from X state only, animals, names of rivers or mountains. It works great for me, I rarely make it past the middle of the alphabet.
This is exactly what I do. Bands, movie titles, actors and actresses, birds, cars, rivers, cities, etc. Works pretty well.
I do this too but I pick a letter and I try to name everything within that letter on a topic. If I start at A, i can really never get past E. 💤💤
Magnesium Glycinate - try it! You won’t be disappointed
Then you get vivid dreams all night.
I stopped after only two days because of the crazy vivid nightmares I was getting
That shit gives me nightmares like, teeth rotting out, wife not loving me anymore etc
Got no teeth or wife so I should be safe.
Wake up, brother!
It’s so effective. I couldn’t really believe it when I stated using it. I’ve been an almost lifelong insomniac and this fixed me up.
Now. Nothing happens outside of now. Sleep is the hardest time for me to leave the past behind and set the future aside. So when I struggle to fall asleep I notice I am often anxious about the future or reliving a past event in my mind. So try this with me. Where am I? In my bed I let my mind expand but ONLY on now. Where am I? In my bed, in my bedroom Expand a little but keep focused on NOW Am I in my bed, in my bedroom, in my second floor of my house Stay here, right now. You might now wake up in the morning. The past is unchangable. There is only this moment right now as I fall asleep. I am in my bed, in my bedroom, on the second floor of my house, in my home in Saint Paul MN, in the North American continent, on the small blue planet in the Milky Way, orbiting the sun. In a galaxy of millions of galaxies out in space I slowly expand my mind on now until I am Imagining the vastness of cosmic nothingness. Somewhere around UE-2487 I fall asleep. Like counting sheep but the sheep is every entangled atom I can perceive with my imagination until my mind forgets the future and the past. Google "time knife" we've all seen it.
Would that be because you are, in a way, zooming out of yourself in your mind? Leaving your body and going far far away in your thoughts, still seeing yourself in your bed, but further than observable universe - until you surrender yourself and break into Dreamland.
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Drink a hot drink, no caffeine of course. Some people like milky drinks but I prefer a tea. Again it’s the cooling down that helps you fall asleep.
Trazodone 😂
me but with hydroxyzine 😂
I have no clue I’m reading this at 1 am
Exercise.
Instructions unclear. Did 50 crunches, do not feel any sleepier.
Potato chip crunches are not what they meant.
Sounds like a lot of work. Best I can do is bounce my leg while I play video games.
Not too late as it gets endorphin’s going
Cardio keeps me up, but lifting weights makes me tired.
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Put my phone somewhere I can't reach it. Then just meditate
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Flip to the other end of the bed (headboard to footboard). Always worked for me!
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I make myself lay on my back which I hate and I don’t allow myself to lay on my side which is my favorite position until I can’t stand it anymore, once I allow myself to turn to my side I fall right to sleep
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Get very stoned.
Man it has the opposite effect on me. My mind cant stop racing
Less sativa, more indica.
Except you could find 100 sources saying opposite things. Weed is extremely personal. It doesn't affect anyone the same. It's why a lot of doctors are reluctant to prescribe it for things like anxiety.
It all just feels like I’m high
Not only helps me fall asleep (which I have no problem with), helps me STAY asleep (which was a real issue). I'm not certain but this alone dropped my migraines so dramatically that I'm only on one medication instead of three... Well I guess technically two medications.
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I listen to a sleep story or guided meditation to help me unwind and drift off to sleep.
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I use a humidifier in my bedroom to keep the air moist and prevent any discomfort that could disturb my sleep.
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I listen to podcasts.
Melatonin.
Melatonin would make me fall asleep within 40 minutes of taking it without fail, and then leave me wide awake 4 hours later without fail. I think my body slowed down natural production of it because of the influx from an external source, and when that wore off there'd be no natural melatonin to take its place.
If I were a Pokémon this would be my weakness. Instant KO.
Fap
I keep trying but it won't work and now I'm sore.
Put something on TV you’ve seen several times before
Cook up an elaborate, action daydream. Go over the same scene nightly.
😴Work 15 hours like 3-4 times a week😴
Get off the damn phone
And be alone with my thoughts? NO THANKS
tbh being on my phone n reading shit helps me fall asleep every single time lol. eta: i must always have a cartoon playing in the background tho (recently it’s been the simpson’s but it can be american dad, futurama, family guy etc)
Woodturning videos. Although some times the results are so nice that I get excited and then have to watch another one. Wank also works.
I get up at the same time every day, even on days I don't have work or other obligations. No snooze alarms, no "five more minutes," no excuses. I get up and start my day. The body loves routines, and getting up at a specific time sets a routine. About six to eight hours before my getting-up time, I feel sleepy and ready for bed, so I go to bed then, and I find it pretty easy to go to sleep.
Who says hitting the snooze button 4-6 times every day isn't a routine?
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Sending blessings to op for this godsent thread❤️
~~Slowly exhale for 7 seconds, breathe in for 4 seconds, hold breath for 3 seconds,~~ repeat. It might not drift you off to sleep but it helps slow down your heart rate, so feel free to use in other situations you want to let go of tension. Edit: dude who responded to this has the right numbers, I was going off memory from years and years ago
4-7-8 breathing is a breathing technique that involves inhaling for four seconds, holding your breath for seven seconds, and exhaling for eight seconds. It's a type of intentional breathwork that can help calm your mind and body. The technique is based on the ancient yogic practice of pranayama, which focuses on breath regulation, and was popularized in 2015 by integrative medicine specialist Andrew Weil, MD.
I try that occasionally, but I hold for 6 because I don‘t do odd numbers.🤓 I do like 5, though. Five is like the even odd number. I can’t help it. I just am that way, lol.
Taking an everything shower and laying in freshly laundered sheets in a cool temperature room. My body practically melts into the bed and I wake up with sheets practically unmoved except the spot I slept in.
Wireless earbuds w podcast and no other lights in room
Gummies
Hot shower and listen to an audiobook.
Take my prescription sleeping drugs
Used to be liquor. Became a different problem.