I cast a draining/depressant spell on My mind to reduce cognitive activity.

start day dreaming/meditation

if im restless i will go for a walk around the block.

glass of water/small snack

open the window

socks on/off

masturbate/get laid.

Baseball

Being old and tired. Sorry I had to, but it’s really true.

But for some mroe helpful input I would always recommend background noise. Water, wind, thunder, trees, rain etc. Can really recommend mynoise as web or app paid with all content (worth it!).

Imagine your body slowly floating up to the ceiling. Or conversely, sinking down through the mattress.

Having something to listen to is key for me. It gives a racing ADHD mind something to focus on so that I kinda fall asleep without noticing.

I have a cheap random brand of sleep mask that has built in bluetooth headphones, and it is great.

Audiobooks… Not the good ones like DCC though. My recommendation is something interesting but with a boring (and maybe monotone) narrator. Silmarillion comes to mind. It works for me because it is not interesting enough to hold my ADHD brain’s attention but not enough to actively fight to be awake to keep listening. I’ve been doing this for a while (10+ years), every now and then it misfires and you can’t sleep because the book is too good and your brain won’t disengage.

Learning to chill/meditate is quite helpful, but can take a long time.

I’ve found the ‘military sleep method’ to be very helpful as well. The version I found years ago, had you tense up each body area before relaxing it, but the links I found now mentioned none of that.

Think about the fact that you have to wake up later and how much you’ll want to stay in bed

Then, remember where you are right now, and start to realize how good it feels to be in bed

No responsibilities, no distractions, no obligations, just the rest you’ve been waiting for. All time is frozen, nothing matters until tomorrow

Think of very nice things. Utopia, special interests stuff like that

Magnesium helps me go to sleep and relaxes me. No side effects, won’t keep you asleep. Like if I fall asleep at 10, I very well could wake up at 12 and struggle to fall back to sleep but it at least puts me to sleep which is tough for me

What I find really, really, helps is jumping on the bed until you hit your head on the ceiling and just pass the fuck out wherever you land.

I’m looking for the pharmaceutical aids honestly. I regular have a problem where I’ll go to bed and simply lie awake the entire night. It’s caused by stress at work (I’m an architect). I will go to bed at the usual time, miss my sleep window or something, and then if I haven’t fallen asleep within the first 45-60 minutes then I just know that’s it, I’m not sleeping that night. It happens once or twice a month when I’m really stressed and just can’t stop replaying things I need to do or emails I need to send or big meetings that I have the next day.

So yes, it’s time for pharmaceutical aids

I see all the usual advice was already given so I’ll skip right to the weird things that work for me: I lie on my belly with my face resting on my palm so that the base of the thumb gently presses on one of the eyes (right hand on the left side of the face or vice versa). The pressure makes me sleepy almost immediately.

At the same time I think about some detailed but impractical project, anything I’d like to make but cannot immediately start. I think about the tiniest details until I fell tired. The goal is not to try to fall asleep and not to think of anything that would require action/attention, and also not to dwell on anything unpleasant. I usually fall asleep under 5 minutes.

Doesn’t work for everyone, but it works for me:

http://www.sleepwithmepodcast.com/