I seem to hear from a variety of people that they struggle to fall asleep at night; but the difficult to fall asleep sounds like an evolutionary downside. Even as hunter-gatherers, being able to sleep whenever and wherever sounds like it would be an advantage.
Is it a recent product of modern times and people didn’t actually struggle with it a while back? In which case, what of modern life is causing this? If not, what is the evolutionary advantage of not falling asleep easily?
Years I I remember reading something about it as an evolutionary necessity. I have no reference now. Anyway it says that having in a tribe people accustomed to fall asleep at different times and in different condition allowed to have always at least one person on a watch for dangers coming from the outside. This does nor explain why people struggle to fall asleep for long hours, but at least it gives a partial explanation.
I basically can. If I lay down I can daydream into hynagogic imagery and then it’s sleep from there. I used to be an Insomanic but the last few years have been pretty easy.
Some people can. In the bonus material for the LOTR extended edition, Elijah Wood talks about how he can fall asleep virtually on command, and this comes in very handy in film acting, where you often have many periods of waiting in between being able to work. Other cast corroborate this, commenting on seeing him sleeping frequently.
Sleep now is a lot more difficult than sleep 100 years ago.
Light matters. Blue light from computer screens has been tied to sleep issues. The theory is that it mimics certain bandwidths of sunlight that our eyes are primed to read as “daytime, get up and start moving.”
Hydration and food matters. You need to be in a good state but shouldn’t consume much right before bed.
Exercise matters. A lot of people have trouble sleeping if they move around a lot before bed. Since we have electric lights and can stay up very late doing stuff, it’s hard for your body to know it’s time to start winding down.
Best solution I’ve found: no caffeine after noon, consistent bed schedule (both going to sleep and waking up), black out curtains and/or sleep mask, earplugs/earbuds/brown noise track, and stop using screens an hour or two before bedtime.
I can’t stress enough how much a sleep mask and earplugs improved my quality of sleep. It cuts down on the impact other people have on your sleep and it can also help in a sort of rituale way. Our brains are very suspectible to rituales and putting in your earplugs and on your sleepmask can be a great way to signal your body that it’s bedtime. You can also extend this bedtime rituale with things like brushing your teeth.
I’ve had extreme difficulty falling asleep since being little, one of my earliest memories is of not being able to sleep and being up at 4am still.
Of course stuff like late-day caffeine; blue wavelengths of light; adrenaline from gaming / exciting TV; lack of exercise etc can all hinder sleep, but for some it’s a chronic issue. Melatonin is a big help but my current GP practice has gone to ridiculous (imo negligent) lengths to not prescribe it for me, and it’s hideously-expensive online here (UK).
My biggest tip is: get a colour-changing remote bulb for your bedroom & living room, set it to red light in the evening; and if you can manage it, do something that doesn’t involve electronics for 45mins before you plan to go to sleep. I try to read a book under red light.
This is because we have retinal cells that respond to blue wavelengths of light, to breakdown melatonin. Our bodies produce melatonin in the evening to make us sleepy; the bright white lights in our homes / TV etc are full of blue wavelength and actively disrupt our melatonin cycle.
