Ask HN: How do you go to sleep quickly? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you go to sleep quickly?

8 pointstnorthcutt19 comments

I would like to go to sleep much more quickly than I currently do. I often lie awake in bed for an hour or two before falling asleep. I typically get in bed at a reasonable and consistent time (almost always before 10:30pm, often before 10:00). I would like to be asleep by 10:00pm and wake up by 5:30am. When I do fall asleep quickly, I have no problem waking up without an alarm at a reasonable time.

Short of taking drugs to assist in falling asleep, do you have any suggestions for how to fall asleep more quickly? What has worked for you?

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I change my schedule by partying hard a Saturday night and staying awake (not sleeping since getting back from partying) most of Sunday until about 8:30pm at which point I take a hot bath, put on an eye mask and drop dead in bed. I'm usually awake at around 4:30 or 5am Monday. After that I just condition myself to be sleepy when I go into my room. If I have something to do at home after work, I do so out of the room. I basically condition myself to be sleepy the moment I enter my dark room at night by just going to sleep really early. After that I'm AOK to sleep around 9 and wake up at 3 or 4am and get shit done in the hours before going to work. Then when I get home I have time to watch a movie and check emails before collapsing in bed.

I am 28 so I might add that you might want to adjust such a process according to your age and responsibilities. Hell you might not like to party like I do. If that's the case, substitute the partying for reading a good book, working on your startup, testing to see how waterboarding and CIA sleep depravation works, or just having a crapload of coffee.

Also, I know you specifically mentioned no drugs, BUT it might be easier to take a Benadryl at 6pm and use that to wake up early the next day. You will feel a bit drudgey the next day but that's fixed with the first cuppa-o-joe of the day.

Hope I helped :)

PS: I know my methods aren't the healthiest, but they do work for me and I keep in shape with good nutrition and exercise, so that's that.

Interesting method. I've got a two year old, so lack of sleep, even for one night, is simply not an option. I wouldn't make it through the next day :)

On another note regarding pharmaceuticals for making it through a day like that, Modafinil works wonders without the jitters that come with caffeine overloads.

That being said, if you've got a two year old I'd think that your sleep schedule will mostly be customized with some daily exercise, avoiding bright screens at night, and supplementing with some melatonin. If you do, I'd advise to try lower doses of melatonin, as lots of times lower doses work better.

I have a hard time getting my butt to bed and when I do, my brain is still running a hundred miles a minute. I've been experimenting and here's what works for me.

1. Turn off the TV. 2. Turn on some white noise, there are apps, mp3s, etc. Nature sounds work too. 3. Stretch. This doesnt have to be any hardcore yoga regimen. My back tends to be tense by the time I'm done working so its a good time to listen to your body and work on areas so your body is relaxed. Do this until you do feel relaxed. Sometimes its 10 minutes, other times its 30 minutes. Whichever way, it beats tossing and turning in bed for hours on end. 4. Follow up with a meditation session. Again, no need to follow any regimen here. Just sit, in the dark, collect your thoughts and at a certain point, your mind will be cleared. Its amazing what sitting in a dark, quiet environment for 5~10 minutes will do.

There are a ton of resources about relaxation techniques, find one that works for you. And if you dont want to worry about meditation styles, just sit in the dark and relax your mind or just let it wander. You'll want to learn about meditation as you get comfortable with it.

I know this may sound like some "hippie crap" to some but you'll see how important meditation is. Especially if you've been following HN for a while.

Whichever way, cut the caffeine intake, stop the late night tv sessions (I'm always guilty of this one), and relax.

Good luck.

This is probably going to be long and rambling: as luck would have it, I didn't have a great sleep myself last night :)

So there's the 'common' suggestions of avoiding caffeine in the afternoons / evenings and trying to 'switch off' half an hour or so before going to bed (as in, turn off the computer, put down the cell phone, dim the lights and maybe read a book).

I know you said you wanted to avoid drugs, but does that include all 'chemicals'? Melatonin is great for helping with sleep, although I find it helps more with 'keeping me asleep' than 'putting me to sleep'.

Do you have a TV or computer in your bedroom? If so, get rid of it. I don't care if it's not on when you fall asleep, you have to get rid of it. I don't know why, but for my wife and I, getting rid of the TV from the bedroom had an immediate effect. And we weren't the type to stay up late watching it just because it was there.

Have you tried meditation at all? For a long time, I did a fair amount of meditation and that definitely helps me to fall asleep... just basically running through the relaxation practice. For an even longer time (when I was in high school) I used to listen to self-hypnosis tapes. Again, just from repetition I can pretty much put myself to sleep by running through one of those in my head.

Having said all that, here's one trick I learned from a very unlikely place: some random guy on Big Brother in Australia a number of years ago :) Lay down and in your head imagine drawing the number '150' in the sand. Do it slowly and think about what you're doing... if you pay close attention, you can almost see every grain of sand moving as you do it. Once you finish '150' imagine doing '149', '148' and so on.

For me, at least, it's all about (a) trying to keep your mind off the happenings of the day, and (b) doing something that you do all the time and that you associate with sleep.

If I lay down and can start on the 'numbers in the sand' thing straight away, I can be asleep by '145', because my entire body understands the drill :)

Anyway, hope that helps!

The routine/mind exercise definitely makes sense, I'll try that.

We do have a TV in the bedroom, but it literally has not been turned on in months, so that's a non-issue.

I know of Melatonin, but I've got no trouble staying asleep, just falling asleep. Do you (or anyone else) know if it's supposed to be helpful for falling asleep?

If the TV hasn't been on for months, try moving it out of the room anyway. I don't know if it's some sort of 'electrical hum' or completely psychological, but just try it. I know it sounds crazy, but what's the worst that can happen?

Melatonin is supposed to help you fall asleep, from what I understand. Personally, it sometimes helps that stage, and sometimes it doesn't at all. I would definitely try it at least.

Good luck with it. It must be a relief just having that (sudden?) clarity that "this isn't right". I'm currently going through the same thing with concentration / focus... it's good to realise that you can actually do something about it!

A brief cold shower with water pouring down onto your skull will nudge your body temperature down a bit, which signals your body it's time to sleep. You can also try cycling diphenhydramine 40-100 mg, melatonin 0.5 - 1.5 mg, and orange blossom water, never taking any one more than two nights in succession.

Orange blossom water, which you can find in Arabic grocery stores, is used to flavor deserts, and is traditionally used in some Mediterranean countries as a relaxing tea ("cafe blanc": "white coffee" though it's actually colorless), and, in a dose of a drop or two added to a milk bottle, to help children fall sleep. Drink two or three tablespoons of orange blossom water in a cup of warm water and you will soon feel a heavy shroud of sleepiness descending upon you. You'd better be near your bed when you finish that cup. The effect seems to work no more than twenty minutes or less, so it's perfect to help you fall asleep, without the risk of having to fight off a drugged feeling hours later should you have to get up and be alert.

Get rid of all artificial lights in your bedroom. No night lights. Put tape over the little LED light on your smoke detector, black out the windows, etc. Avoid blue-light exposure after sunset---that means computer monitors, televisions, phones, etc. You can do orange sunglasses if you must use these light-devices or install applications like f.lux. If you read before bed, prefer e-ink devices to light-emitting devices, or, you know, an actual book. Make your reading light as yellow as possible in color temperature (2700K yes, 5000K or 6500K no), or even red.

Keep a notebook by your bed to capture any remaining thoughts at the end of the day. This will release you from the need to try and remember them overnight.

Why do you want to go to sleep quickly?

What makes 10pm a reasonable time?

Why does going to bed at a consistent time matter?

What are you doing while lying in bed before falling asleep?

There are practical reasons for arising at the same time, i.e. getting to work on time. The practicality of going to bed on a regular schedule is at a remove. Even an ideal schedule cannot prevent peaks and valleys, that's just the way our bodies and minds are.

I don't really see the point in answering your questions, since the answers are all subjective anyway. My question (how can I fall asleep more quickly) assumes that for me, doing so is desirable, and that my goals are as stated (e.g. asleep by 10, up by 5:30).

Your reasons aren't subjective. They're your reasons.

My reason for asking is to avoid guessing. If you are laying in bed for two hours ruminating over the fact that you aren't sleeping, some approaches will be more healthy than others.

Fair enough. I was in a bit of a foul mood when I answered earlier - my apologies.

I want to go to sleep quickly to minimize "wasted" time.

I've found that I function best when I average at least 7 hours of sleep, so asleep by 7 would allow me to get up before 6 and feel well. I want to get up before 6, because when I do get up early, I enjoy the quiet time in the morning before the day ramps up (including my young son waking up and requiring attention).

Consistency is important mainly because I need/want 7 hours of sleep, and I want to get up before 6 so that I have some time in the morning as previously mentioned.

Usually if I'm still awake in bed for a while, I'm thinking. About any of thousands of things...

I often suffer from a mind that won't rest when I'm excited about a project or software problem. Have been like that for 20 years now and have only found a cure in the last year.

I listen to an audiobook for 15 or 30 minutes when I get into bed. Gets my mind off everything and allows me to relax and fall asleep. Sometimes I really get into the story which can be another problem. But that is rare.

I used to have problems falling asleep. I used to lay in bed for 30 minutes to an hour trying without success. That was when I used to drink caffeine all the time and rely on it to get through the day. Since I have given it up completely, I can fall asleep in about 10 minutes. So if you're reliant on caffeine, I suggest trying to stop consuming caffeine completely.

Not sure where you're located, but in most countries you can simply get Melatonin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin).

This will help you better adjust to your sleeping times that you would prefer (a lot of people use it mostly for recovering from a jetlag).

There are side effects to this though so check up on them first, one of the most annoying is actually feeling sleepy during the next day.

One method to improve your "sleep efficiency" is actually going to bed _later_ (but getting up at the same time).

This in combination with taking a shower to drop body temperature and then sitting in a comfortable warm and dark room for half an hour just before sleeping.

I play minecraft iOS version on the bed for about 20 minutes to relax. Works like a charm.

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