I had absolutely debilitating insomnia for my entire life. In the last couple of years I discovered something interesting. I’ve got a condition called aphantasia which means that I cannot see any images in my mind. For my whole life I heard the phrase counting sheep and thought it was a metaphor. Just like. Thinking about sheep since visualizing wasn’t something that I thought people could do.

Anyway, in researching about the condition I found an article online for an exercise where you can work on trying to visualize something. Basically you close your eyes and use the flashing remnants of vision to try to force a shape to exist. Sometimes you need to push on your closed eyes and a little pressure will cause some patterns to appear. You’re supposed to do this exercise while talking to someone outloud. Even if it’s just making a recording. The article I read said you must say it out loud or you will fall asleep. Me having never fallen asleep in my life without hours of concerted effort completely ignored this warning and much to my surprise it absolutely made me fall asleep within minutes.

Ever since then I’ve been able to use this technique to fall asleep every night. It’s like my mind finally learned how to do it. Most of the time I don’t even need to do these exercises any more.

That being said I was so pleased with this side effect I never even tried the say it out loud to try to improve mental images and I still can’t see anything in my minds eye. But being able to sleep every night without fail is a freaking miracle. So I highly recommend giving it a shot.

Here is the original instructions I found on it. https://photographyinsider.info/image-streaming-for-photographers/

• Sleep and wake at the same time every day.
• Wake early.
• Avoid caffeine after mid day.
• Cool temperature bedroom as you go to sleep.
• Avoid stimulation immediately prior to sleep e.g. screens, intense exercise, arguments.
• Make the bedroom a place of rest exclusively, no screens, noise, etc.
• If sleep is elusive don’t stay in bed, go do something and come back later to try again.
• Worrying about sleep only makes sleep more difficult.
• Don’t use alcohol or drugs to help sleep except very briefly to get over a hump. Of the benzodiazepine class, zopiclone is effective for short periods to re-establish a sleep pattern.

I couldn’t sleep for decades until I started listening to audiobooks. It’s a bedtime story. Shut your mind off, let go of stress and just listen. It can still take a little while but now I fall asleep in minutes instead of 3 hours. It also helps me go back to sleep if I wake up from nightmares.

Reading, absolutely. And exercise.

For me it was a long process but eventually I got to the point where I fall asleep at the same time and I wake up at the same time. In other words I have a highly predictable sleep schedule. The downside is that I’m not able to sleep past my “wake time”.

• Quit smoking and drinking. Nicotine elevates blood pressure and alcohol makes you pass out, not sleep.
• Don’t eat anything heavy for few hours before bedtime.
• No screens at least one hour before sleeping. This might be controversial because there are different studies regarding the issue but cutting the screen time has another positive effect (see next point).
• Reduce or eliminate stimulus - reading polarizing articles, constant notifications, etc.
• This one is a personal one - play soft music at a almost hearable level. For reference, I’m a metalhead but I like soft piano/jazz/blues playing when I fall asleep. Set a time to stop the music so it won’t wake you up.
• Instead of a standard alarm clock use a sunrise alarm clock. Long story short, it’s a lamp that simulates sunrise by gradually increasing the brightness and the colour of the light.
• Use a sleep tracker, for example Apple Watch or any other “smart” watch which tacks your sleep patterns.
• This one is a personal one. Just before you fall asleep, e.g. when reading a book and your hand goes down, go to the bathroom before falling asleep, even if it makes you wake up/active for additional 10-15 minutes.

Same time every night. Consistency is key.

Don’t think of anything real

My favorite trick is to think of myself in a movie and play it out. I commonly put myself in Harry Potter. I walk up to the hogwarts castle door…then I just have fun making stuff up and playing it out like a movie in my head. Next thing I know, I’m asleep.

If I get too far, I just pick a different movie and start over

The worst thing you can do while falling asleep is thinking about the real world. The present, past, or future. Nope, don’t think about it.

Clear your mind and jump start a dream

I’m just someone on the internet, take everything with a grain of salt.

Only go to sleep when you really intent to. No scrolling on your phone in the bed, no reading books,…

The moment you lay/sit down, you intent to sleep.

If it doesn’t work: get up, do something else, try again later.

Isolate factors that could keep you awake like sugar, caffeine, alkohol,… Even a handfull of gummies could influence when you fall asleep.

Check on air-quality, room temperature and moisture, dryness of bedding, room -brightness, -light sources, noice levels.

Try out keeping a journal of these things, as well as your mental state and reflect on your sleep in the morning.

If available, ask your SO or room-mate about their sleep, that’s a great way to identify external influences.

If your data stays inconsistent, ask a doctor, as there might be medical conditions influencing you falling asleep, ike high blood pressure or hormone imbalances.

Massive physical exhaustion with time to “calm down” before sleep.

Don’t “try” to fall asleep (it is involuntary), just make the safe & comfortable feelings so your mind knows it is okay to fall asleep.

Don’t.

No caffeine after 2

Take magnesium glycinate and threonate and hour or so before bed (threonate helps me sleep but it can cause vivid dreams)

Make sure you’re comfortable in the bed both in terms of bed firmness/softness and temperature

Use a fan to regulate temperature and create white noise

Create a regular bedtime ritual (brush, floss, skincare, etc) and stick to it

Chamomile tea can help relax

I’ve also found drinking some cool/cold water right before attempting to sleep can help, because your body temperature drops as you go to sleep. I’m also a hot sleeper, so that also helps to cool down my core.

Make a regular sleep schedule and stick to it as much as possible

Write down any persistent thoughts, journal emotions, or create a to-do list from whatever might be running through your mind. Getting that out of my head and onto paper helps to alleviate any anxiety and can help stop my brain from planning and running amok while I’m lying there.

I turn off all the lights and only use some color-changing LED lights an hour or so before bed. White lights are too bright and can keep me from sleeping. Red is darker, yet still bright enough to see where I’m walking. Red lights are also best for night vision, if you go stargazing, make sure you have red flashlights, because white light will destroy your night vision for 20 minutes or so.

I also use a screen dimming app on my phone to bring the brightness down lower than the brightness setting will allow. On Apple devices, this is a regular setting in accessibility called “Reduce White Point”. Android still hasn’t figured out how to mimic that well and the best app I’ve found is Screen Dimmer Plus. It basically puts a Grey layer over whatever images show up on your phone and will mess with screenshots taken and it doesn’t change anything with the top 1/4" of the screen. The Reduce White Point setting on ios doesn’t mess with screenshots and changes the brightness for the whole screen. It’s one of the big disappointments I’ve had with android.

Get Blackout curtains to block light from the windows

Don’t exercise too close to bed. I also can’t take showers or baths too close to bed because they will disrupt my sleep.

Slow breathing and closing your eyes will lying in bed can help if you’re restless. I’ve also found that if I’m having a particularly hard time falling asleep that getting out of bed and reading a book or fiction story before returning to bed can help.

Choose something light and calming to watch as the last thing before you turn off your TV. Nature documentaries like Planet Earth or a light comedy can help you unwind and be a little more calm than watching an action, horror, or drama movie/TV show.

Another thing I’ve read about if you’re restless is to work your way uo your body squeezing your muscles for a few seconds. So start with your feet and flex them a couple times for a couple seconds, then go uo to your calves, all the way up to your eyes. The flex and release is supposed to help release any muscles that are still clenching from the day.

Spending time in nature during the day is supposed to help calm the mind and body, so finding 20-30 minutes to walk around a park could be helpful.

Don’t stress out about not falling asleep. Lying there with your eyes closed with relaxing breaths is supposed to be restful for the body

Potassium might help you relax and I think it’s also supposed to help with blood pressure if you’ve been consuming too much sodium. Not 100% sure on that, but I figure getting blood pressure under control can help you get better quality sleep.

Laying down and watching an old black and white movie puts me out quick. I’ve been watching the old Universal monster movies this month and it has been a struggle lol. Also started taking melatonin and that helps me sleep too. If I can’t sleep due to stress/anxiety I imagine I’m dying and that seems to work.

I got three, they all seem to work on me, but sometimes I prefer one over the other for no clear reason.

1. Counting my breath duration. Breath in at normal speed, count how long it is, then breath out slower than that by two or three counts.

2. Force my thoughts to become disorganised. I do something like free association between concepts and pictures of the inner eye. Common starting point for me is a free flight over a hilly landscape, then random things, woods, trees, rocks, water whatever, I don’t try to control anything about the theme. If I start thinking coherently or about something concrete from my life, I just start again, with another nature scene.

3. Imagine a calm scene. The suggested starting point I was told was floating on an air matteress in an alpine lake (helps that we know those around here, but I’m sure non-alpine lakes work too) and imagine the things you can see uphill as you drift around your axis.

Complete darkness. Black out curtains on windows. Remove anything that has a light. I can see the tiny LED light on a charging cable through my eyelids. I fall asleep so much faster after getting rid of all light sources.

No alcohol. Drinking would make me fall asleep easily, but I would wake up in the middle of the night and couldn’t fall back asleep for 1 to 2 hours every time.