As i understand, when you can't sleep your mind is active and / or is receptive. Mostly its receptive to new ideas, and hence reading aids in thinking and churning ideas.
In case your mind is active and has too much noise like worries / anxiety etc. i find it best to watch videos i saved for later on youtube or ted.
Assume that this is probably going to be a bad night, you will not sleep much and tomorrow you will be tired. First of all accept that, or you will feel even more anxious. The good part is that tomorrow night you will be tired, so it will be easier to fall sleep.
Then, try to do something to distract yourself. It is really boring to spend the night laying on the bed and feeling miserable because you cannot sleep. Grab a book or watch a film, at least you will do something profitable during the night. Finally, at some point, you will fall asleep. It will be probably too late, but at this point there's nothing you can do about that.
IMPORTANT: Wake up at your time. You will feel extremely tired, and it will be really hard to wake up; but if you sleep until late, you will be altering your internal clock and next day you won't be able to sleep early neither.
If you cannot sleep for several days in a row, probably you should see a doctor. He will be able to help you.
I find that I need a cutoff point where I'm not allowed to do any more work. Otherwise I'll be thinking about work and productivity up until the point where I literally become unconscious (fall asleep).
Sometimes I read/listen to educational stuff. I try to keep it on the lighter side. Sometimes I listen/watch comedy. Right now I've been watching Seinfeld before bed. Before that was Khan Academy history.
I remember hearing advice from some credible source (that I can't remember) that it's not good to keep trying to fall asleep when you are struggling. I think 20 minutes was the point where it was recommended to get out of bed and do something else for a bit. Anecdotally, it works reasonably well for me.
At this point I no longer understand what "can't fall asleep" feels like. Especially after having a child my concern is how to stay awake rather than not fall asleep. Not that I regret it but it has taken a toll on my personal projects.
If I have specific thoughts or concerns swirling around in my head, I find it is sometimes helpful to jump out of bed, find a pen and paper, and write them all down. Often this lets me get to sleep more easily afterwards, as I no longer have to worry about "remembering things for the morning".
Getting a period of decent exercise (walking, jogging, etc) between work-time and sleep-time also seemed to help break up the day for me, and ensure I am both somewhat physically tired as well as mentally tired.
As someone who has always had issues sleeping I hope I can be of some help.
I take 6mg of melatonin. Every night. I have found it allows me to fall asleep within a half hour instead of it taking two hours.
Maintaining good sleep hygiene is often very helpful. Avoid blue light before going to bed. Physical activity and exercise are important. Try not to eat right before going to bed.
When I am really stressed out and just can't sleep, I lie in bed and daydream, (often it's some type of fantasy where I get to live in the future where mankind is living throughout the solar system, I digress). I find doing this calms me down, making it easier to fall asleep.
I don't have trouble sleeping, but when you refer to daydreaming, this is exactly what I do. I play out stories in my mind where I'm in a fictional fantasy (not related to my life in anyway).
Another thing I experienced was when I cut out sugar and caffeine, I'd be able to fall asleep in almost any place. Again, that may only be my experiences.
I just have to be careful about taking it too late, if I really need to be up the next morning. I find that when I take melatonin, I really need my full 8 hours (or more) of sleep, or I feel pretty groggy for quite a while after waking up.
Yeah, the avoiding stimulants is big as well, at least for me. Strangely enough, I feel like that's one thing that's changed as I've gotten older - when I was younger, I could drink coffee right before bedtime and still fall asleep. Now, I find that if I don't cut out the caffeine well in advance of bedtime then it affects my ability to fall asleep.
I'm not very good at the "avoiding blue light" part, I really need to start doing that. But I'm really bad for surfing the 'net or reading some kind document on the computer, right up until time to close my eyes. :-(
Read a physical book (not a computer, phone, or tablet screen) — I've been reading this monstrous tome lately, and it's been a great change from Facebook and Twitter: http://www.amazon.com/Aperture-Magazine-Anthology-Minor-1952.... A Kindle is an ok fallback (for me at least)
Get some exercise — I feel way better after running even just 1 mile. I did 3 earlier tonight, and can barely keep my eyes open right now.
Don't drink coffee after x PM — I always cut myself off from caffeine by 4pm, and try to do it by 2pm. Find out what's right for you.
Take some melatonin — It did me a lot of good when I used to have trouble sleeping.
Address the sources of anxiety in your life — A comparison of how well I sleep now vs. when I had a lot of anxiety in my life (stress from working at Microsoft, stress from trying to drag along my faltering startup, etc.) is stark. I don't fall asleep with much or any worry most nights.
Worst case scenario: ask a doctor to prescribe you Ambien or the like. Re-establish a decent sleeping pattern, and then figure out how to address everything else.
Edit: There's one thing I want to mention about exercising. I started running only two months ago after what essentially amounts to a lifetime of non-exercise. I wasn't overweight by any means—I was just plain skinny. Like, sort of the way you expect your average nerd to be skinny. After my first run of barely a mile (walking about half of it), I wondered if I was going to have a heart attack. I didn't, thankfully. And now, two months later, I can run a longer distance than my first run/walk with basically no trouble whatsoever. I feel great, have more energy, and sleep better.
You don't need an Apple Watch. You don't need a health tracker. Just move. It feels better every day, and—I promise—within a month or two you'll start craving it. It's an awesome feeling.
I was waiting for a build to finish ;) I was planning on getting to bed before midnight, but got wrapped up in some fun 'work'. Thought I'd come back here once to see what folks had said on this thread, and then call it a night.
edit: to be clear, not that I'm previously familiar with your work; just noticed that you must be another left-coaster, and decided to Google you. And, assuming you are the aforementioned Tim Schumann, hi from a somewhat near neighbor in Seattle.
I think falling a sleep at will can be done by either getting too tired or too bored. I generally watch / read something really boring (e.g. I cannot stand biology related books or youtube video teaching biology. Sometimes I force my self to watch / read a boring books / videos and in 15min I start yawning and soon sleep.
Another thing I do is I climb stairs to my house (I stay on the 6th floor and have to climb more than 100 steps)
Lie on your bed. Relax. Instead of trying to fall asleep (and thinking about it) think about making yourself as comfortable as possible. Turn this way, move your arm that way,... Once you've done it, the sleep usually follows. In short, think comfort not sleep.
P.S.
I've used to have troubles falling asleep, but that simple method helped me to solve the problem. I would give the credit to the original author, but I can't remember where I read it.
Not really what OP asked, but I think it's far more important to try and fix the cause of why you can't go to sleep, instead of working on the symptoms.
1. Try to go to bed at the same time every day (and sleep the same amount of time). I'm a night owl and can easily move my day on, but moving it back is very difficult.
2. Sleeping ritual. Mine is pretty simple, I turn the lights off, climb in bed and lie on my right hand side. After a bit (1-10 minutes) I will turn over and then I'm pretty much immediately asleep. If you repeat something it will become ingrained (and will work most of the time).
3. Fix all sources of disturbances. Partner, pets, light, noise etc.
4. Learning to switch your brain off. Try not to watch/read something that's too emotionally charged before bed.
5. After that everything else that has already been mentioned, eating too close to going to bed, having drunk something so you need to get up to pee etc.
For most people sleep shouldn't be a problem, they just have terrible habits and/or environment.
I mostly get restless when I'm excited about something (much like kids on Christmas Eve).
Its particularly bad tonight/this morning; I found Elixir a few days ago, and I keep thinking about doing things with it.
Often I'll try to go to bed, get in some weird thought-state, and "wake" back up with a fully planned project in my head I just absolutely have to get worked out.... or.... rather, usually, some really weird/dumb idea that I thought was great and probably shouldn't have wasted the night on.
When I can't sleep, I do something which I call the '1 2 3 4 5'-exercise.
While still in bed, lay on your back and think of something you can 'see' (imagine it), anything as long as it's something that physically exists. For example: your car, a guitar, a chair. Imagine it and try to describe it to yourself in the best possible detail. 'My guitar is surf green, it's a Fender Carbonita, it has 22 frets, it has a maple neck, ...' Do this for five things.
Then move on to "things you can feel". Physically feel. For example, describe how your couch feels, how your blanket feels. Again, every little detail. Five times.
Then think of five things you can hear: not at that exact moment in your bed, but things you might have heard throughout the day. Something I think of often is the sound of a train arriving or leaving. Again, try to describe it to yourself in the best possible detail. Do this, again, five times.
Then start over at describing something you can 'see'. Do it four times, move on to feeling, 4 times, move on to hearing, 4 times. Then all over again, except this time 3 times. Then 2, then 1.
I have never made it past the first 5 descriptions of 'see'. I usually fall asleep after describing two objects to myself.
It might help you fall asleep.. Might not. Worth a try, perhaps?
As a kid I had a hard time getting to sleep (small home, could hear everything). I eventually learned to block everything out and sleep using the following routine:
1. Start breathing as slow as possible.
2. Count breathes, starting at 100 and working back.
That usually did the trick.
I occasionally do something similar. I count breathes starting at one and try to visualize what each number would look like, in detail. Focusing completely on something so very simple helps clear my mind of whatever I'm thinking about.
I can't sleep when my mind is racing with ideas or replaying the day.
First, I'll write down all my ideas, thoughts, etc. Even if just a few words, I think that action helps me brain turn off.
If I'm still awake, the big guns, I'll read a fiction book in another language. A few minutes of that and I'm exhausted. The kindle is great for that, because it's got an easy dictionary for looking up unknown words. Just make sure you're wearing orange tinted glasses or you're on a non-lit screen, otherwise the blue in the phone screen will wake you up further.
Most importantly I try to take my mind off thinking about the day/problems in general. If I'm a 'little awake' I make movies/stories in my head in as much detail as I can conjurer. Usually some adventure story I play out. Kinda amuses me until I drift off.
If I'm really awake and don't want to go back to work I put on a movie onto the TV I've already watched a few times, ideally something a bit boring. Usually that makes me drift off.
There's also the more personal option I'm surprised no-one has mentioned yet. That tends to help the boys sleep at least.
Get up, eat a small amount of cooked oatmeal or other complex carbohydrate cereals (the tryptophan link), go back to bed, read a novel and you'll likely drop off after a few dozen pages.
Get up, eat a small amount of cooked oatmeal or other complex carbohydrate cereal, return to bed and read a novel; after a few pages you'll likely drop off.
43 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 92.1 ms ] threadAs i understand, when you can't sleep your mind is active and / or is receptive. Mostly its receptive to new ideas, and hence reading aids in thinking and churning ideas.
In case your mind is active and has too much noise like worries / anxiety etc. i find it best to watch videos i saved for later on youtube or ted.
Assume that this is probably going to be a bad night, you will not sleep much and tomorrow you will be tired. First of all accept that, or you will feel even more anxious. The good part is that tomorrow night you will be tired, so it will be easier to fall sleep.
Then, try to do something to distract yourself. It is really boring to spend the night laying on the bed and feeling miserable because you cannot sleep. Grab a book or watch a film, at least you will do something profitable during the night. Finally, at some point, you will fall asleep. It will be probably too late, but at this point there's nothing you can do about that.
IMPORTANT: Wake up at your time. You will feel extremely tired, and it will be really hard to wake up; but if you sleep until late, you will be altering your internal clock and next day you won't be able to sleep early neither.
If you cannot sleep for several days in a row, probably you should see a doctor. He will be able to help you.
Sometimes I read/listen to educational stuff. I try to keep it on the lighter side. Sometimes I listen/watch comedy. Right now I've been watching Seinfeld before bed. Before that was Khan Academy history.
I remember hearing advice from some credible source (that I can't remember) that it's not good to keep trying to fall asleep when you are struggling. I think 20 minutes was the point where it was recommended to get out of bed and do something else for a bit. Anecdotally, it works reasonably well for me.
Getting a period of decent exercise (walking, jogging, etc) between work-time and sleep-time also seemed to help break up the day for me, and ensure I am both somewhat physically tired as well as mentally tired.
I take 6mg of melatonin. Every night. I have found it allows me to fall asleep within a half hour instead of it taking two hours.
Maintaining good sleep hygiene is often very helpful. Avoid blue light before going to bed. Physical activity and exercise are important. Try not to eat right before going to bed.
When I am really stressed out and just can't sleep, I lie in bed and daydream, (often it's some type of fantasy where I get to live in the future where mankind is living throughout the solar system, I digress). I find doing this calms me down, making it easier to fall asleep.
Another thing I experienced was when I cut out sugar and caffeine, I'd be able to fall asleep in almost any place. Again, that may only be my experiences.
Breathe deeply & concentrate on making your exhale longer than your inhale.
I just have to be careful about taking it too late, if I really need to be up the next morning. I find that when I take melatonin, I really need my full 8 hours (or more) of sleep, or I feel pretty groggy for quite a while after waking up.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin
[2]: http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/tc/melatonin-overview
I'm not very good at the "avoiding blue light" part, I really need to start doing that. But I'm really bad for surfing the 'net or reading some kind document on the computer, right up until time to close my eyes. :-(
Get some exercise — I feel way better after running even just 1 mile. I did 3 earlier tonight, and can barely keep my eyes open right now.
Don't drink — Your sleep isn't as restful: http://time.com/3671777/drinking-sleep
Don't drink coffee after x PM — I always cut myself off from caffeine by 4pm, and try to do it by 2pm. Find out what's right for you.
Take some melatonin — It did me a lot of good when I used to have trouble sleeping.
Address the sources of anxiety in your life — A comparison of how well I sleep now vs. when I had a lot of anxiety in my life (stress from working at Microsoft, stress from trying to drag along my faltering startup, etc.) is stark. I don't fall asleep with much or any worry most nights.
Worst case scenario: ask a doctor to prescribe you Ambien or the like. Re-establish a decent sleeping pattern, and then figure out how to address everything else.
Edit: There's one thing I want to mention about exercising. I started running only two months ago after what essentially amounts to a lifetime of non-exercise. I wasn't overweight by any means—I was just plain skinny. Like, sort of the way you expect your average nerd to be skinny. After my first run of barely a mile (walking about half of it), I wondered if I was going to have a heart attack. I didn't, thankfully. And now, two months later, I can run a longer distance than my first run/walk with basically no trouble whatsoever. I feel great, have more energy, and sleep better.
You don't even have to start running. Just start walking. Here's a better story than I can offer you at the moment on the value of this: http://www.loopinsight.com/2015/06/16/apple-watch-my-most-pe... and http://www.loopinsight.com/2015/06/18/follow-up-to-how-i-los...
You don't need an Apple Watch. You don't need a health tracker. Just move. It feels better every day, and—I promise—within a month or two you'll start craving it. It's an awesome feeling.
Are you this Tim Schumann? http://projectskyhook.com
edit: to be clear, not that I'm previously familiar with your work; just noticed that you must be another left-coaster, and decided to Google you. And, assuming you are the aforementioned Tim Schumann, hi from a somewhat near neighbor in Seattle.
Another thing I do is I climb stairs to my house (I stay on the 6th floor and have to climb more than 100 steps)
this list is pretty good, considering the source:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/nataliebrown/charts-that-will-help-y...
* exercise
* wake up earlier
* stop using all electronics after 9
As far as drugs go benadryl is pretty innocuous. You could always buy that ZzzQuil stuff but it's the same thing for more money.
Lie on your bed. Relax. Instead of trying to fall asleep (and thinking about it) think about making yourself as comfortable as possible. Turn this way, move your arm that way,... Once you've done it, the sleep usually follows. In short, think comfort not sleep.
P.S.
I've used to have troubles falling asleep, but that simple method helped me to solve the problem. I would give the credit to the original author, but I can't remember where I read it.
1. Try to go to bed at the same time every day (and sleep the same amount of time). I'm a night owl and can easily move my day on, but moving it back is very difficult.
2. Sleeping ritual. Mine is pretty simple, I turn the lights off, climb in bed and lie on my right hand side. After a bit (1-10 minutes) I will turn over and then I'm pretty much immediately asleep. If you repeat something it will become ingrained (and will work most of the time).
3. Fix all sources of disturbances. Partner, pets, light, noise etc.
4. Learning to switch your brain off. Try not to watch/read something that's too emotionally charged before bed.
5. After that everything else that has already been mentioned, eating too close to going to bed, having drunk something so you need to get up to pee etc.
For most people sleep shouldn't be a problem, they just have terrible habits and/or environment.
Its particularly bad tonight/this morning; I found Elixir a few days ago, and I keep thinking about doing things with it.
Often I'll try to go to bed, get in some weird thought-state, and "wake" back up with a fully planned project in my head I just absolutely have to get worked out.... or.... rather, usually, some really weird/dumb idea that I thought was great and probably shouldn't have wasted the night on.
Sleeping with blinds open is pretty important for the next day. If you don't have any natural light then getting sunlight as early as possible helps.
If I do take melatonin, I don't take it past 1 AM... I feel like it messes up my circadian rhythm even worse if I do.
While still in bed, lay on your back and think of something you can 'see' (imagine it), anything as long as it's something that physically exists. For example: your car, a guitar, a chair. Imagine it and try to describe it to yourself in the best possible detail. 'My guitar is surf green, it's a Fender Carbonita, it has 22 frets, it has a maple neck, ...' Do this for five things.
Then move on to "things you can feel". Physically feel. For example, describe how your couch feels, how your blanket feels. Again, every little detail. Five times.
Then think of five things you can hear: not at that exact moment in your bed, but things you might have heard throughout the day. Something I think of often is the sound of a train arriving or leaving. Again, try to describe it to yourself in the best possible detail. Do this, again, five times.
Then start over at describing something you can 'see'. Do it four times, move on to feeling, 4 times, move on to hearing, 4 times. Then all over again, except this time 3 times. Then 2, then 1.
I have never made it past the first 5 descriptions of 'see'. I usually fall asleep after describing two objects to myself.
It might help you fall asleep.. Might not. Worth a try, perhaps?
First, I'll write down all my ideas, thoughts, etc. Even if just a few words, I think that action helps me brain turn off.
If I'm still awake, the big guns, I'll read a fiction book in another language. A few minutes of that and I'm exhausted. The kindle is great for that, because it's got an easy dictionary for looking up unknown words. Just make sure you're wearing orange tinted glasses or you're on a non-lit screen, otherwise the blue in the phone screen will wake you up further.
If I'm really awake and don't want to go back to work I put on a movie onto the TV I've already watched a few times, ideally something a bit boring. Usually that makes me drift off.
There's also the more personal option I'm surprised no-one has mentioned yet. That tends to help the boys sleep at least.