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Comment by jansan | Hacker News Reader

Only slightly related, but I often try to find ways to fall asleep faster. One thing that seems to work in some situations is trying to imagine a void (like a white or gray plane) for a while. However, often enough this does not work and I wonder if anyone knows of tricks that work for her/him (without using Melantonin or other drugs).

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A friend shared his technique with me, and after adapting it to my needs, it works well. None of the other commonly mentioned techniques ever worked for me, because they ask for focus, which is the opposite of what my brain needs to fall asleep.

Here's his technique: pick a letter of the alphabet, and find as much words that start with this letter as you can. Once you can't find words anymore, pick the next letter. Doesn't work for me, my brain won't ever stop.

I noticed I have to visualize stuff in my head to fall asleep so my adaptation is to pick a single letter and a single word, and visualize it in my head, using it, manipulating it, experiencing it, whatever. For example: letter P, word Pineapple, imagine you're holding a pineapple, you feel the roughness of it's skin in your hands, you throw it in the air and catch it again, you take a knife and slice it on a wooden table on the beach, etc.. The dream kicks in seconds. Without external interruptions, after a few minutes I'm asleep (instead of rummaging for hours).

If you notice you're stuck in a loop/pattern (for me anything about text, like reading or writing, and voice, like listening and speaking, or stressful scenarios), just pick a new letter, pick a new word, visualize it.

I live at a 36-hours-at-a-time rhythm and it's absolutely brutal seeing as its 5:30am and I should have been in bed a long time ago. Going to give this a go and report back. I did the lucid dream thing for awhile but holding a heavy object in my hand and then dropping it got quite annoying (to train yourself to be more aware of when you enter a hypnagogic state).

Non 24h sleep syndrome or something else?

Yes. I have no off switch.

I do something similar. If I'm not anxious but awake, I try to just visualise random stuff, random worlds. Somehow my brain is decent at that and I slowly drift off, though I sometimes get a jolt from reality. Recently I found that when I'm anxious it's better to try and imagine doing a hobby. I just imagine myself trail running. Reduces anxiety, pushes me towards sleep.

I pick a category, like fruits and vegetables or cars, and then try to come up with a word in that category that starts with every letter of the alphabet in order. To keep it relaxing I synchronize it with my breath. On the breath in, I note the letter I am on: "C" for example. On the breath out I note the word: "Cantaloupe". If I don't have a word for that letter by the time I breath out, no big deal, I conceptualize whatever was in my mind at that point and then repeat the letter on the next breath in.

Another thing I do that works well for me is just counting breaths. On the breath in I think "in-n-n-n-n" and on the breath out I count. When I lose count, and I am still awake, I start again from 0, as any sane programmer would ;-).

ETA: For a couple of months I have been doing a short gratitude routine as I am getting into bed. I acknowledge the good and positive things that happened during the day, and I tell myself that I did a good job (if I did) or that I did as well as I could today and that's good enough for today. Then I think, "And now it's time for rest. I've been looking forward to this." If any part of me starts thinking about the day again or thinks about tomorrow, I gently reassure it that I will attend to all of this tomorrow morning and that now it's quiet time and time to rest.

All of this plus 250 mg of magnesium an hour before bed has made falling asleep super consistent and easy.

There are several things I use:

- think of past enjoyable moments (for me it's hiking, I usually don't go very far until I fall to sleep)

- box breathing

- hold breath for N sec then release, then N+10, then ...

- try to relax your body from top to bottom (forehead, eyes, cheeks, mouth, ...)

- imagine your body is very light, like your floating in the air

- imagine your body is very heavy, like a block of concrete sinking into your bed

- pick TAOCP and try to solve the exercises ;)

I have had sleep issues my whole life, but what works for me is: - Get up same time every day - Moderate excersize every other day - Stable diet, homecooked healthy food and no soda/beer/candy whatsoever. - Dim the lights after dinner - No screens after 8pm (e-ink screens are allowed), no podcasts, no digital content consuming. - Actively aim to be bored everyday - Read a good book before bedtime

May sound like a lot, but I sleep now.

>No screens after 8pm (e-ink screens are allowed), no podcasts, no digital content consuming.

Who needs the exception of e-ink screens are OK?

To read books?

I have a routine and the crazy part is that it is 100% effective, in that I can be restless, consciously start the routine, and 100% of the time I fall asleep. It is the oddest feeling to begin the routine, which requires conscious mental effort, and suddenly you can't remember anything because you fell asleep. I can only ever recall doing it at times when my mind is racing, so I can't say how well it works when calm as I forget to do the routine when calm.

The routine is basically a game to see if you can "flow" between mental images by envisioning scenes in your mind and then allowing some object in the scene to "pull" you into a different scene. For example, envision the power cable of your lamp, you fly along the power cable up to the light bulb, and then you envision the bulb glass exploding into a million pieces, which becomes snow falling on a ski lodge, you see the warm glow of fire in the fireplace, and a fireball blasts out the chimney into the sky, somehow becomes a perfect flaming sphere, that becomes a meatball and falls into a plate of spaghetti, you are eating it down, you see yourself at a ratty diner table, under the table you see your shoes, and then your shoes are running through rain puddles, you zoom into a single droplet which is actually a massive aquarium tank, fish are swimming in it except we are in the ocean, not a tank, and the fish is so colorful but those colors are actually an explosion of rainbow paint colors dripping down an apartment wall, etc. etc.

It might sound ridiculous when written in words, but that is the gist of it. The game is to lay there and consciously morph and fly between mental images, letting your mind conjure imagery that comes next.

It's crazy because I start doing this with a conscious struggle to envision the next chain-of-events but suddenly my brain catches on and starts unconsciously playing the game and images just kinda flow and BAM asleep.

What works best for me is to take a book, on paper, preferably on a boring topic (depends on you, obviously) and just start reading. Usually my eyes drop in a matter of minutes. Once I wake up, startled by the book falling over, I kill the lights and go to sleep. Works every time, any time.

If I lie in bed and just think stuff, it takes much longer.

Seconding this...also works well when I wake up in the middle of the night to get back to sleep which unfortunately seems to happen more and more every year.

I do this with audiobooks/podcasts and then can start with the lights off and lying down. (important part I find is making sure the dynamics are low -- no high-volume ads or flashy punctuated sound effects)

Not sure if any other buds work like this but the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds seem to auto-pause based on some kind of fitbit/sleep indicator which help even more with staying asleep.

Yeah, melatonin makes me feel like crap after a few days of use and it's hit or miss.

One thing I've done for years is focus on breathing. Get in a comfortable position and totally relax your body. Slowly take a deep breath. Then exhale until you can't no more. Repeat this 10 or 15 times.

For whatever reason, this works for me probably 75% of the time. The other 25%, forget it.

On a side note, I'm sure most of us here can relate to this song. https://youtu.be/vaG4vGsIFMQ

Have you tried smaller doses of melatonin? Can be hard to do as the smallest dosage I usually see at stores is still much higher than what I’ve found to be my max dose

Was going to reply the same thing.

I buy 1 mg tablets and even that is too much for me. I use a razor blade to cut them into 1/6th pieces.

Takes less than 30 minutes to kick in.

A lot of other comments here about poor sleep I believe are the result of drinking caffeinated products past 1 PM.

On a side note, a good way to check your progress towards falling asleep is looking through your closed eyelids. The more movement (points, lights) you see, the more you're actually close to falling asleep.

Box breathing (2 secs in, 2 secs hold, 2 secs out, 2 secs hold) or meditation both usually help if I can’t fall asleep. Physical exercise during the day also helps.

For me, holding my breath for as long as I can and then releasing it also helps.

There are a lot of imaging and thought techniques you can use, eg imagine sittimg beside a small stream, while the water guegles by, watch the leaves and sticks flowing past. or imagine events im yoir life floating by, or imagine being a duck floating by, swimming, or flying, etc. There are also body relaxation techniques ( zen , meditation, etc ) There are many many techniques available.

What works for me is to pretend that I'm asleep. And it's good to be able to recognize the first phase of sleep – it's that state that you think that if somebody asked if you're asleep you'd think to yourself "no, I'm not", but have an excuse of "I don't feel like actually talking".

> trying to imagine a void (like a white or gray plane) for a while

Huh, mine is a plane in level flight. (From outside.) Preferably smaller. Depending on my mood it’s retro or like a fighter jet.

Sounds trite but my surefire method is to stop thinking. I literally lie down, close my eyes, and stop thinking. Sleep comes quickly.

My mom always told me to do this as a child. I’ve never understood this nor any other visualization technique. I have never found this to be possible. At best I actively think about not thinking which is counterproductive but even then within about 10 seconds my mind has already wandered. And if I’m not actively trying I’ll always have some other thoughts popping in no matter what

Something that works for me is count from 10 to 1 slowly. Concentrate getting to 1. If another thought enters, start the count again. Repeat. This is like counting the proverbial sheep.

That's in the same category of techniques that will only work for a very brief time for me. At some point I realize I have background thoughts, and then those take over.

This happens to me as well, but when I become aware of other non welcome thoughts, I just start counting again. /shrug

It might be because it wasn’t a technique as such. I don’t visualise not thinking, I just stop thinking about things, but I also don’t have a constant inner voice talking to/with me as I understand many people do.

" I just stop thinking about things" is the part that I can't comprehend. I've never been able to do this. If I try, I immediately start thinking about things w/o intending to do so.

all I can offer you is an intrusive thought with a song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v64-DpcLEvI

sometimes what works for me is literally inventing a movie in my mind. Then the awake part take the backseat...

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