Forums » Smalltalk » Have any tips for falling asleep/relaxing faster?

After years of it taking hours and hours for me to fall asleep, I finally got on a few medications that make it much much easier for me to fall asleep, stay asleep etc. I fall asleep in like an hour and a half instead of 4-5 hours of tossing and turning. Still, I find that hour and a half still much too long for me to be comfortable. I wake up later than I'd like to, and don't sleep quite as restfully as I'd like to. Mostly because I struggle to really relax before bed.

I don't want to mess with upping my med doses or anything until I've tried everything else to help me relax and maybe fall asleep in 30 minutes instead of an hour and a half.

I've tried various teas and breathing exercises, but I'm curious about what tips and things y'all do to fall asleep faster or relax before bed.

What teas, what breathing exercises, what other shit do y'all do?

I'm horrible at having a super strict routine, but I want to try and would love to compile some stuff from you all.

The only thing off limits is recommending pharma medications. Herbal supplement recommendations with caution are welcome.

If I'm struggling to sleep I play some music on my phone.

Weightless by Marconi Union is apparently "The World's most Relaxing Song" and it was created in collaboration with Sound Therapists.

But if you search for terms like "Music to sleep to" You can find a variety of nature (ocean, storms) and easy-to-listen to sounds (such Tibetan drums)

(You can also find Weightless and other sleep songs on Spotify and other music applications but youtube is my favourite because there's a lot of 8-10 hour loops.)

A small cup of decaffeinated coffee puts me to sleep right away. I hope it works for you also.

i also have yet to find anything that works for me, but i’ve heard that supplements like valerian, listening to white noise / music / tv shows, keeping all electronics out of the bedroom / only using the bedroom for sleeping and meditation works for some!

Usually, I listen to classical music on low volume and maybe a cup of royal milk tea as well.

I've been diagnosed with clinical insomnia and I'm not medicated for falling asleep as I find myself unfortunately easily addicted to sleeping medications due to traumas, unhealthy coping mechanism habits, chronic depression, severe anxiety disorder, and a lack of impulse control brought out from my ADHD during the decade and a half I wasn't medicated for it. (For several years sleeping was an unhealthy coping mechanism I would use in order to avoid reality.) So, I've managed to come up with a few safer and more healthy options to fall asleep easier. They aren't always successful for me, but they've helped me enough times I'm happy to mention them here.

This Rain Storm video has a black screen with really great thundering and rain sounds. I often use this alongside a deep breathing technique that helps me calm my mind and give a sense of "meditation" that helps me ease more into sleep.

If you use your phone for alarms and such in order to wake up for work, be sure to set your phone to silent and remove it from vibrating or making any notification sounds unless someone calls you, or a specific contact messages you through a specific app. You can set alarms to still work through "Do Not Disturb" modes on most androids, though I'm not sure about anything with an IOS operating system. This often makes it more difficult for me to get distracted by notifications or messages from people I love talking to but need to step away from to sleep.

If I remember correctly from a conversation in another server on discord; you've mentioned you struggle with FOMO?(fear of missing out). Please correct me if this is wrong! My sincerest apologies if I am mistaken in mentioning this here either. This is something I struggle with and often keeps me distracted from falling asleep, so I found if I make sure my phone is face down and tucked under my pillow then it will be out of sight enough that I won't instantly try and check it repeatedly for messages. I also play the thunder and rain sounds directly from my phone underneath my pillow in order to keep the sounds going for the sleep noise but not get distracted with my phone.

Since I work nights I don't often get the luxury of all blacked out rooms to sleep, so sometimes I make a pillow fort out of my stuffed animals, pillows, and thin blankets around my upper body to give me both darkness and the cozy comfortable feeling of being cocooned in a safe little 'fort'. This is definitely one of my bigger coping methods for both anxiety and sleep.

The types of teas I like, because I'm not really a huge fan of chamomile are usually peppermint, Celestial's Lemon Zinger, Celestial's Honey Vanilla Chamomile, and Stash's Chamomile Nights.

Another thing I've also discovered that helps me fall asleep faster is taking a really hot bath or shower right before I need to sleep. This usually causes the external body temperature to rise and then cause the internal body temperature to begin dropping in order to regulate itself. This "cooling" sensation I get from it often helps me go to sleep really quickly. This is also a reason some people feel really sleepy right after a hot shower. Our body naturally starts cooling itself down when it needs sleep and lower the energy we need to be using. This is often why MOST people cannot fall asleep at all when it is too hot. (I know for me personally I can't sleep at all when I'm burning up.) This is also why you might sometimes feel like you're freezing when you're extremely exhausted and can't seem to get warm, your body is in cool down mode and wants to sleep.

I also sometimes take a 3mg or 1mg tablet of melatonin. I never recommend taking melatonin as a regular sleep aid on a daily basis. 1 to 3 times a week is probably the max I would ever recommend it. And as always, I strongly insist on talking with your doctor on if Melatonin is a safe option to add to helping you sleep since you already take medications that help you fall asleep and stay asleep.

Melatonin should also always be started in very low doses, because if you overdose on it then it has the complete opposite effect of its purpose. Too much melatonin in your system, which is a naturally produced hormone in your body already, will cause your body to wake up. This is what happens when you take too much melatonin. An article by Healthline.

EDIT: For the record, I have a word-based brain - I don't see in pictures or emotions when I think, it's all words and blackness. If you have a more visual leaning brain, I'd suggest looking up meditations or similar that use more visual methods.
Also a note that the methods I've listed below I've found from shifting / quantum jumping "methods", and it turns out they just help me ZONK OUT when I need to. Regardless of if a person believes in shifting or not, googling "shifting sleep methods" will usually come up with something intended to make you fall asleep - if nothing in this thread works for you, maybe try something like that c:

If I'm having trouble falling asleep I either either:

1. Start going through the alphabet and listing any and every word I can think of per letter. Once I'm out of words for one letter, I move on. I tend to fall asleep by H, I, or J, but if I end up reaching the end, then I just go in reverse.

• EX: Alligator, Archibald, Archaic, Alliance, Ally, Abs, Armistice .... Bread, Bored, Bungalow, Burned ... etc. etc.

2. Inhale / Exhale while you count; Only count numbers on your inhales (or exhales ... one, not both) and try to slow your breathing as much as is comfortable. I find that doing this tends to ease me into a sleepy state much easier.

3...? If I'm having a particularly difficult night, I'll do the alphabet, then count to 100 (or whatever number you so choose), then alphabet, then count, etc.
Or Alphabet, Count, Count backwards, Alphabet, Count, Count backwards ...

4. Rarely I'll do math problems just as my brain randomly comes up with them (ex: times tables, adding one number to the number before it, then that number to the number before it, etc.)



Essentially the best way I've found to put myself to sleep is to make myself as bored as possible. If you can find something that makes you bored as hell before bed, I'd suggest trying / doing that.


(This post brought to you by the fact that my newest anxiety/depresso meds make sleeping ROUGH. I'm even on enough melatonin that a vet who was talking about giving my 200 pound mastiff melatonin, when she heard the dose I was on, was SHOCKED that I could have trouble sleeping with the amount I take every night b/c it's the same amount she wanted to give the dog (10mg) ... who weighs 60-70pounds more than I do lol)

This. I lay flat with my eyes closed and take deep yet comfortable breath inhalations, then pause briefly holding it in before exhaling. The pause is to help the lungs absorb more oxygen per breath, keeping my blood/oxygen saturation levels up. I tend to drift off after a few minutes of doing this.

ASMR videos, never fails for me! It stops my brain from wandering without being as engaging as music - and I find general ambience like rain noise isn't very effective for me.

If you'd like any suggestions just ask. I know that initially looking into the ASMR void of youtube can be quite intimidating because there's so much out there (and because it's so popular, there's a lot that in my opinion aren't all that good).

Thanks everyone for your advice! I will trying some of these out, even ones I've already tried before to see if they might work now.

Thanks for this! Very important info. I take melatonin, usually 0.25mg or 0.50mg a few days a week, I have definitely overdone it before and woken up feeling terrible mentally because of it, so this is definitely something to keep in mind.

Hello. I've struggled with insomnia my whole life. I find that what helps me most nights is by listening to Binaural Beats or Solfeggio Frequency music tends to help me out.

Example Here is one I've been listening to lately. Experiment and explore and see what works best for you. If you are also someone who sleeps best with maybe a tv on or music playing but are sensitive to light then I'd also suggest getting bone conduction earphones so you don't have to worry about having earbuds falling out or making you feel uncomfortable. (They also don't bother when you fall asleep since they're flexible, so might be something to consider.)

Hope for the best~!

This is really cool! I've never heard of "shifting", so this definitely brought me down an interesting rabbit hole. I tend to struggle with traditional or typical meditation methods due to my ADHD. Counting and alphabets sometimes help me quite a bit, but I often struggle with them as well. Thanks so much for sharing this.

As there are already so many helpful answers about some things I also would have thought of - and many more answers about what I didn't think of yet, so thank you very much everyone! - I am sharing something personal that I have been doing since I was little to fall asleep.
And it is directly connected to me being a roleplayer, so I think I can share this on this website in specific!

So I have always had "comfort characters" who might have been but not necessarily needed to be the characters I also roleplayed as (even a long time before I found out that text-based roleplay was even a thing!) and thinking of these characters in different situation helped me a lot during my entire life. I guess it's not always super helpful - especially when it is just done to distract instead of dealing with actual issues - but for sleep and relaxation I think it is harmless and when it works there is nothing wrong with that.

I'm not sure how you actively try to do this, but for me it sometimes really really helps to think about a character I can "feel" in a way I instinctively know about for example their decisions in many different situations without thinking too much but rather "feeling" it in some way - and imagining them laying down to rest after a long day of travelling the world / working on their craft / fighting the bad guys / you name it! For me it works best with fantasy-based characters who are travelling a lot for their quest but can't go on with that in the night because it's dark and dangerous and they're exhausted. So the travelling group (could be any number of people, could also be just your character with maybe their animal companion to maybe even a whole army of roman soldiers or a mixed adventure group like in lord of the rings, you name it) sets up a camp for the night. Depending on circumstances they light a campfire and take shift staying awake to protect, but the most important part starts of course where your character has not duties anymore, lay down and try to get some much needed rest.

Sometimes I even know where they are and find some fitting ambient (with a river nearby or maybe night forest sounds, maybe rain on their tent or just the fire crackling if there is any) but that is of course completely optional for it to work. For me at least, I actually have no idea if other people can relate. But then you try and get comfortable as much as possible, some blanket and pillow. You can think about everything that happened this day - and since it's not the things you really did, I can assure you that the thought of just barely escaping a fire breathing dragon or an army of feral orks is a lot less frightening as for example even struggling with doing the dishes on time - but then also about the fact that you're not alone. Someone is near and keeps you protected. Maybe it's your tame wolf you can cuddle up against? Or do you have a little crush on one of your party members? Maybe they are currently up for night shift to make sure everything is okay...

I could go on, but I guess it can be anything as long as you relate to it, maybe have some characters you really feel a lot - it could even be yourself on vacation, climbing mountains or resting on the beach. I think it is probably connected to a range of "meditational" practises, just a place where you are always safe and sound and can visit when you need to let go of all the troubles and just relax.

Maybe this works for some people as well, maybe you can try it out and see if you find anything of the like - or something completely different that works for you just as well! Of course this is probably only useful for some types of insomnia, and I mean no offense with basing this on the mind and thoughts if it maybe is something physical more than this. It just came to my mind, so I thought, maybe I'd share it!

I know a lot of people who listen to audiobooks they've already heard before so they don't care about falling asleep during the story. Me, I listen to creepypasta videos on YouTube. It's not everyone's thing but the tales of monsters read in a soothing narrator's voice puts me to sleep. If I don't want to listen to anything I use earplugs. I'm very audio sensitive and random sounds will keep me up for hours so anything that can block it out helps. I hope you find something in this thread that helps.

ok i’m late to this but this. THIS. i have a word-based brain too, and can confirm that all of this works well. going through the alphabet and thinking of words is good, and if that’s too easy then go through with one-syllable words, then two-syllable, etc. Thinking of song titles that start with letters is also fun.
My personal favorite is thinking of a random word, and then taking the last letter of that word and finding a word that starts with THAT letter. (e.g. food -> dark -> kangaroo -> open -> nose -> etc)