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?
you wont like this answer:
sometimes** start your day by wakeing up at 3amTrain 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 husband does this!! He watches this episode of Bobs Burgers every night. It works for him. Its his comfort episode
I usually fall asleep to random youtube iceberg videos. Never thought about doing the same piece of media every night. My initial thought is that I’ll get bored of it after x amount of sleeps and then my mind starts wandering into my anxious thoughts. I’ll give it a shot though
Maybe finds a few you like and make a playlist, then just watch those specific ones? Something that you can mentally focus on when in bed with your eyes closed, but also something that’s not competing to hold your visual attention as well as no giant volume swings for your audio attention. Don’t want to fall asleep to quiet dialog only to be woken by the shootout in the next scene, or fall asleep to a mellow ballad and awoken by a rock track, for example.
Edited to add: around getting bored with it— I have changed what I listen or watch every few years, but it’s a very slow ramp up of new and ramp down of old. Something your brain recognizes and likes, but isn’t trying to stay awake to read the next page or see the next episode or upcoming challenge or whatever.
I think at the core, I am applying the same idea or concept of getting into a routine but i don’t focus too much on the words they’re saying as much as the tone or cadence of speech. Honestly now that I think of it, it feels like falling asleep in a lecture lol. Like it doesn’t matter who’s talking or maybe even what they are talking about, as long as they keep droning on monotonously
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 …
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.
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.
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.
I got old.
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!
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.
Chronological age is different than cumulative age. I’m not sure if those are the correct terms.
The secret ingredient is exhaustion
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
you are like a crashed motorcycle
I fall asleep when my exhaustion overwhelms my anxiety; I get up when my anxiety overwhelms my exhaustion.
This should be on a t-shirt or mug or something
I hate sleep, so I get it over with as quickly as possible. I fall asleep quickly and I wake up quickly and spend as little time as possible in between
I wish I could hate sleep as much as I hate starting a new day.
I envy you. Waking up is bar none the worst part of everyday. I don’t necessarily mean that in depressive sort of way, but coming out of sleep is the worst feeling. If I could have a normal and healthy life sleeping 12+ hours at a time, I would.
No secret, I’m hammered before bed.
Masturbation
fap cum crash
Within minutes?
I think I’m asleep in the split second before my head even touches the pillow.
No secret, just born with it.
You’ve never had issues sleeping? Even if the next day is super busy?
Very rarely. My sleep pattern fluctuates. When exhausted I find myself passing out early, say 8:30pm.
When I’m in night owl mode, I can be active until 11:50pm then wind down and be asleep before midnight.
“Night owl mode” “asleep before midnight”
This is what I read at almost 1am with probably still at least a half hour before I’m going to fall asleep tonight (about average for me with sometimes a bit later)
Tap for spoiler
Not trying to shame or one up or anything, just think it’s funny
In the situations where you are anxious for the next day, what do you do to help yourself sleep?
Genetics
Don’t even need to hit a pillowThe steering wheel however…
“I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming and in agony like all of his passengers.”
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.
No secret technique. I go to bed when I’m tired, I’m asleep as soon as I hit the pillow. Literally-sometimes I fall asleep on the way down to the pillow. Just how I’ve always been. /shrug
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.
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.
