Ask HN: How do you fall asleep?

by dustyreagan on 7/30/2010, 9:31 AM with 6 comments

I've always had trouble falling asleep. But not having a 9 to 5 has made it even worse. Left to my own devices I fall asleep when I'm mentally exhausted and wake up, without an alarm, when I'm rested.

I just can't seem to shut my mind off at will, and further I can't decide if the effort to go to bed at a reasonable hour is even necessary, aside from fitting in with social norms.

What do y'all do? Do you try to go to bed at a reasonable hour? Why? How do you shut your brain off and sleep?

  • by username3 on 7/30/2010, 10:14 AM

    Start dreaming in your head. Don't think of real stuff or ideas you're working on. Dream or imagine something. Stretch. Get comfortable.

  • by mindcrime on 7/30/2010, 2:47 PM

    I struggle falling asleep sometimes as well. Actually, a lot of the time. Here's what helps for me:

    1. Don't bring my laptop into the bedroom. If it's around, I keep giving in to the urge to check HN or Facebook or Twitter or my email "one last time" every 15 minutes or so.

    2. I drink a glass of milk and take a melatonin tablet about 30 minutes before bed. Melatonin helps induce drowsiness.

    3. Turn the light off. Seems totally obvious, but if I'm reading in bed, I may have my lamp on. Sometimes I just have to force myself to turn the f!#kng light off so I can fall asleep.

    4. Turn the AC down. I sleep better when it's a little chilly, so I turn my thermostat down a few degrees a little while before bedtime.

    5. Daydream. I just start running through some kind of scenario in my head and let the fantasy run until I fall asleep.

  • by jacquesm on 7/30/2010, 9:42 AM

    Truth be told, badly. I can lay awake all night thinking about stuff and then when I get up in the morning I can be more tired than I was when I got in.

    Very frustrating, and I wished there was a reliable, non pharmaceutical way to get a good nights sleep. I've tried a lot of different things over the years, the only thing that seems to help me is to stop 'work' around 4 pm and to only work on physical stuff after that. (not that anything I do could legally be called work, but it keeps me busy nonetheless).

  • by stravid on 7/30/2010, 10:05 AM

    I don't think there a many people able to shut down their brain by pure willpower. When I notice that I can't go to sleep I get up again. Why?

    Because when the body is not ready for rest, it's, atleast for me, impossible to force him. So I just start doing things like go for a walk in the dark, read a book or clean up. Once I get tired I hop back in bed and surprise, I'm able to fall asleep.

  • by runevault on 7/30/2010, 10:07 AM

    One thing I've found to help is listening to a podcast, oddly enough. Even though I enjoy the content, something about the sound from the TWiT network just seems to put me out if I'm laying in bed with it on.

  • by donohoe on 7/30/2010, 10:54 AM

    Kids. They remove most barriers to sleep.