Ask HN: Sleepytime Hacks for an Insomniac?

4 points·goolz··5 comments

I have been catching myself staying up until 4am most night and while I am trying to cut back on screen time and get to bed earlier, I simply can not fight my racing thoughts. I was curious what some of you night owls do in my situation? Cheers.

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Those racing thoughts are things that need to get processed. The problem you're having is the first time your brain gets a chance to do that is when you're ready for bed.

Find 20 minutes or so in the evening to meditate. You can use a meditation app or just sit and do nothing. In extreme cases, I've just sat doing nothing until my mind runs out of things to think about it.

All the other tips you'll hear help too: daily cardio, no caffeine after lunch, etc.

Go for a walk/run every evening. Eat a few hours before hitting bed. Do pranayam few minutes before bed. Massage your head with coconut oil or hibiscus oil. Drink, if possible, a glass of warm milk with a spoonful of honey about half an hour before going to bed.

this always helped me. I read this somewhere. So, you start fully relaxing your body head to toe. you have to feel your body sinking into the bed and fully relax all your muscles by individually feeling each muscle from head to toe individually feeling each muscle. Then I start from toe and work my way up the body and relax each muscle. I usually fall asleep with in five to ten minutes. English is not my first language. Given some days I am too stressed for this to work or I forget about this technique.

I stay up.

My intuition is fretting over lack of sleep is at least as bad as lack of sleep.

Even if I am wrong, I have enough hobbies already.

YMMV.

I keep a bottle of high-proof liquor near my bed. As I rarely drink, just a swig is enough to push me over the edge into sleep.

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