I got three, they all seem to work on me, but sometimes I prefer one over the other for no clear reason.

1. Counting my breath duration. Breath in at normal speed, count how long it is, then breath out slower than that by two or three counts.

2. Force my thoughts to become disorganised. I do something like free association between concepts and pictures of the inner eye. Common starting point for me is a free flight over a hilly landscape, then random things, woods, trees, rocks, water whatever, I don’t try to control anything about the theme. If I start thinking coherently or about something concrete from my life, I just start again, with another nature scene.

3. Imagine a calm scene. The suggested starting point I was told was floating on an air matteress in an alpine lake (helps that we know those around here, but I’m sure non-alpine lakes work too) and imagine the things you can see uphill as you drift around your axis.

Complete darkness. Black out curtains on windows. Remove anything that has a light. I can see the tiny LED light on a charging cable through my eyelids. I fall asleep so much faster after getting rid of all light sources.

No alcohol. Drinking would make me fall asleep easily, but I would wake up in the middle of the night and couldn’t fall back asleep for 1 to 2 hours every time.

For me it was a long process but eventually I got to the point where I fall asleep at the same time and I wake up at the same time. In other words I have a highly predictable sleep schedule. The downside is that I’m not able to sleep past my “wake time”.

• Quit smoking and drinking. Nicotine elevates blood pressure and alcohol makes you pass out, not sleep.
• Don’t eat anything heavy for few hours before bedtime.
• No screens at least one hour before sleeping. This might be controversial because there are different studies regarding the issue but cutting the screen time has another positive effect (see next point).
• Reduce or eliminate stimulus - reading polarizing articles, constant notifications, etc.
• This one is a personal one - play soft music at a almost hearable level. For reference, I’m a metalhead but I like soft piano/jazz/blues playing when I fall asleep. Set a time to stop the music so it won’t wake you up.
• Instead of a standard alarm clock use a sunrise alarm clock. Long story short, it’s a lamp that simulates sunrise by gradually increasing the brightness and the colour of the light.
• Use a sleep tracker, for example Apple Watch or any other “smart” watch which tacks your sleep patterns.
• This one is a personal one. Just before you fall asleep, e.g. when reading a book and your hand goes down, go to the bathroom before falling asleep, even if it makes you wake up/active for additional 10-15 minutes.

Oh boy.

First of all, form good “sleep hygiene” habits, read: https://health.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/data/Sleep Hygiene.pdf

A lot of it is obvious, like go to bed at the same time every night (set a timer to get yourself reliable at first!), and wake up at the same time every morning. Give yourself more “sleep opportunity” than the hours you want to sleep so you actually get enough sleep (e.g. if you want to sleep 8 hours, maybe give yourself 10 hours in bed with the lights out).

Don’t use screens several hours before bed, don’t do anything but sleep in your bed, and wind-down before bed with something like reading a book (again, in a chair in another room, not in your bed).

Now for more advanced tips I’ve learned from dealing with insomnia:

A problem I have sometimes had is that tasks like meditation can actually cause me to become more alert, and it turns out meditation actually does cause insomnia.

When struggling with meditation related insomnia, I got lots of practice navigating falling asleep.

What I found most helpful was rather than focusing on an object in a meditation like way, to instead allow mind-wandering and rumination and to try to cultivate a lack of metacognitive awareness about that rumination. Basically, the opposite of meditation. Meditators will hopefully know what I mean by this - but basically, don’t pay too much attention to what you are thinking, just get absorbed into the mind-wandering.

Sometimes if the mind-wandering leads to thoughts or feelings that are “strong” or engaging enough it can prevent me from sleeping, like when I’m anxious or my mind is preparing or rehearsing for an important event or the next day. In that case, a little bit of meta-awareness can be helpful to alert you to the need to redirect your rumination to something actively boring or benign.

In the most extreme instances, I visualize myself working in a factory performing a repetitive motion like pulling a level to operate a press. I essentially constantly try to pay attention to that mundane task and ensure that it remains mundane / uninteresting - just keep pulling the lever and keep paying attention to that task. This is akin to the counting sheep method, but I always found counting sheep too interesting or engaging of a task.

After hours of boredom I usually lose consciousness.

Sometimes I threaten myself with getting out of bed, and often in response I feel a resistance and that makes me realize how tired I actually am, and I threaten myself with doing something boring like sitting in a chair and staring at a wall. Sometimes that is enough to kick me out of my energized thinking into a milder / more boring and repetitive mind-wandering that leads to dreams and unconsciousness.

Sometimes I actually do have to get out of bed and do something, often I will stretch and if I’m not feeling overwhelmed with sleep that way, I find it helpful to exhaust myself with forearm planks - just hold until you can’t anymore (you can also use a timer for 30 seconds or 60 seconds, whatever pushes you past comfort but all the way to failure), maybe try this a couple times. You will sweat and it’s miserable the whole time, and you will be tired and want to crawl back into bed. That has helped me fall asleep really well before, and sometimes I think it’s because the blood also gets into my muscles and somehow this helps me relax.

Anyway, hope this helps!

No caffeine after 2

Take magnesium glycinate and threonate and hour or so before bed (threonate helps me sleep but it can cause vivid dreams)

Make sure you’re comfortable in the bed both in terms of bed firmness/softness and temperature

Use a fan to regulate temperature and create white noise

Create a regular bedtime ritual (brush, floss, skincare, etc) and stick to it

Chamomile tea can help relax

I’ve also found drinking some cool/cold water right before attempting to sleep can help, because your body temperature drops as you go to sleep. I’m also a hot sleeper, so that also helps to cool down my core.

Make a regular sleep schedule and stick to it as much as possible

Write down any persistent thoughts, journal emotions, or create a to-do list from whatever might be running through your mind. Getting that out of my head and onto paper helps to alleviate any anxiety and can help stop my brain from planning and running amok while I’m lying there.

I turn off all the lights and only use some color-changing LED lights an hour or so before bed. White lights are too bright and can keep me from sleeping. Red is darker, yet still bright enough to see where I’m walking. Red lights are also best for night vision, if you go stargazing, make sure you have red flashlights, because white light will destroy your night vision for 20 minutes or so.

I also use a screen dimming app on my phone to bring the brightness down lower than the brightness setting will allow. On Apple devices, this is a regular setting in accessibility called “Reduce White Point”. Android still hasn’t figured out how to mimic that well and the best app I’ve found is Screen Dimmer Plus. It basically puts a Grey layer over whatever images show up on your phone and will mess with screenshots taken and it doesn’t change anything with the top 1/4" of the screen. The Reduce White Point setting on ios doesn’t mess with screenshots and changes the brightness for the whole screen. It’s one of the big disappointments I’ve had with android.

Get Blackout curtains to block light from the windows

Don’t exercise too close to bed. I also can’t take showers or baths too close to bed because they will disrupt my sleep.

Slow breathing and closing your eyes will lying in bed can help if you’re restless. I’ve also found that if I’m having a particularly hard time falling asleep that getting out of bed and reading a book or fiction story before returning to bed can help.

Choose something light and calming to watch as the last thing before you turn off your TV. Nature documentaries like Planet Earth or a light comedy can help you unwind and be a little more calm than watching an action, horror, or drama movie/TV show.

Another thing I’ve read about if you’re restless is to work your way uo your body squeezing your muscles for a few seconds. So start with your feet and flex them a couple times for a couple seconds, then go uo to your calves, all the way up to your eyes. The flex and release is supposed to help release any muscles that are still clenching from the day.

Spending time in nature during the day is supposed to help calm the mind and body, so finding 20-30 minutes to walk around a park could be helpful.

Don’t stress out about not falling asleep. Lying there with your eyes closed with relaxing breaths is supposed to be restful for the body

Potassium might help you relax and I think it’s also supposed to help with blood pressure if you’ve been consuming too much sodium. Not 100% sure on that, but I figure getting blood pressure under control can help you get better quality sleep.