Are you just always tired? Do you have some kind of bedtime ritual? Have you had issues sleeping in the past and how did you handle that?
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.
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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.
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.
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
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 😁
Pot.
Waking up early everyday, and getting stoney mcstone stoned about an hour before bed each night. Fucking bliss.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
