I'm pretty sure at this point I have familial advanced sleep phase syndrome of an unknown genetic etiology [1].
Wake up stupid early in the morning, get drowsy very early in the evenings etc. For a long time due to social pressure/habit I'd just power through the evening drowsiness. That lead to me only being able to sleep six hours or so (due to waking up stupid early), which over time lead to a substantial sleep debt.
Going to bed early helps a lot, but over time it seems like I easily start drifting earlier and earlier. I've recently had some success stabilizing my rhythm using sublingual melatonin when I first waken at 2-3am. Let's me get a couple extra hours of additional quality sleep which is a lifesaver. Wears off quick enough that by 9am or so it's basically out of my system.
I've actually been tinkering/hacking the last year or so on sleep tracking wearables. Initially focused on EEG/HRV monitoring but I'm taking a very modular approach and ultimately want to build a full set of sensors/effectors/etc.
I've recently been experimenting a lot with skin temperature gradients, turns out in the lead up to sleep it's not just blood flow in the brain that is altered [2].
You might know this, but sleep debt doesn't just keep piling on. Eventually, and rather quickly, you may begin to experience permanent brain damage after a few nights of sleep deprivation.
From one insomniac to another... In the past I've been lucky if I get 3 hours total of sleep in a night due to physical pain disorders. I have deep trouble getting into NREM. I lucid dream often and my brain is active even when I'm supposed to be sleeping. In my dreams, I have to be careful not to be too energetic or overstimulated, or I will wake up.
I've had insomnia and night terrors since before I was regularly forming memories. An abusive childhood intensified that. I'm in my early 30s now and the damage is clear, both physically and to my life in general.
As much as I fear them, sleeping medication seems like the only way to save myself from early onset dementia or not accomplishing certain goals due to a perpetually low energy budget. It also has prevented me from losing weight. Sleep studies have shown that people who get frequently woken up while sleeping can burn around 50% less fat.. In my case, that's my entire calorie deficit which means in order to lose weight I have to basically starve myself. Melatonin, etc. have never worked for me.
All this to say... Don't wait for the damage to build up even more. Sleeping medication might change your life. I'm hoping it restores mine.
Taking melatonin has been mentioned several times in different threads here, and I just wanted to add my experience...
I find that taking the minimal amount make a big difference here, and it's about 3 micro-grams (not milli-grams) for me. The trick is to get some liquid melatonin drops. There is a brand that has 3 milligrams per 30 drops as a recommended dosage, so I just take 3 or so drops and let them dissolve on my tongue. Using liquid drops this way, there is less of a sleep hangover, and It workes faster that way, too.
I think I read about 3 micrograms as more appropriate for most people on lesswrong, but it might have been somewhere else. It's working really well for me, with frequent breaks from it, for five or more years.
As pointed out above me, 250-300 micrograms is what you likely meant. You might have to hunt for such low doses. I split a 1 mg tab in quarters. Repeated studies have shown that there is not an increase in efficacy, but there is an increase in adverse effects when doses are higher. See https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...
Melatonin has helped, of course. But a few other steps I had read on a Reddit thread [0] also helped me - specifically the point about relaxing facial muscles. For some reason, doing this also seems to calm the mind and reduce random thoughts.
Tangential: Have had sleep disorders my whole life. Until I read an article here about melatonin (an article that was about substances that have an effect on longevity). So I started taking melatonin every night, 0.5mg. I must say: Never had this kind of deep sleep. Over such a long period of weeks (since I started taking it). My Garmin watch has a sleep tracker. And it confirms that I get way more deep sleep.
Different processes happen during different sleep stages. Typically people go from light sleep to deeper sleep stages (slow wave), to REM in a cyclical pattern. We go through each of the stages roughly every 90 minutes of "quality sleep". There's usually more deep sleep at the start of the night, and more REM towards the end of the night.
If you end up with too much deep sleep (e.g. after being very physically exhausted for a while), you will have little or no REM sleep and your sleep quality will suffer.
It's not just "too much deep sleep" that could fuck things up, being woken up multiple times can also mess up your sleep cycle, whether it's by crying children or sleep apnea.
My understanding is that melatonin helps you fall asleep, but doesn't help you stay asleep.
In general, I have no trouble falling asleep, but I typically wake up once or twice at night and am usually unable to sleep more than 5.5 hours. I've tried 3mg Melatonin tablets in Ecuador, and I've tried a couple of different brands of 10mg time-release Melatonin gummies from the US. None of them had any noticeable effect on me.
The only thing that has worked so far, is physical activity. We just moved to Europe, and the first two weeks was a lot of buying and building furniture, slept great those two weeks. Now that I'm back to my normal office worker life, my sleep has also gone back to not being great.
(I track my sleep using the AutoSleep app on iOS, wearing an Apple Watch at night)
Melatonin has a short half life (~1h), that's why melatonin receptor agonists [1] are a thing. So just mechanistically it's unlikely to help with sleep maintenance.
Do you wake up after 5.5h at a consistent time of the day and the first half of the night is peaceful? If you fall back asleep do you then wake again shortly after?
I mean waking in the night can be many things (apnea, etc), but you could very well have a rather advanced sleep phase.
The body will develop a tolerance (or the reverse, a sensitization reaction) to just about any substance that's taken regularly due to homeostasis. However, so long as you're taking a dose that nudges some physiologic signal/need in the right direction, your body's response to the substance will be minimal.
I'd be surprised if you can find anything this isn't true for.
A lack of studies on what the tolerance looks like for a particular substance does not imply that tolerance does not form.
In the case of melatonin: It's almost universally true that your sleep quality is worse than it was before once you stop taking it (for a few days at least). That's an indication that your body's equilibrium has changed from habitual use.
You're right! Edited the post...thanks for pointing this out was actually a mistake on my part the article was about incorrect dosage which was the point I wanted to make.
Only slightly related, but I often try to find ways to fall asleep faster. One thing that seems to work in some situations is trying to imagine a void (like a white or gray plane) for a while. However, often enough this does not work and I wonder if anyone knows of tricks that work for her/him (without using Melantonin or other drugs).
On a side note, a good way to check your progress towards falling asleep is looking through your closed eyelids. The more movement (points, lights) you see, the more you're actually close to falling asleep.
A friend shared his technique with me, and after adapting it to my needs, it works well. None of the other commonly mentioned techniques ever worked for me, because they ask for focus, which is the opposite of what my brain needs to fall asleep.
Here's his technique: pick a letter of the alphabet, and find as much words that start with this letter as you can. Once you can't find words anymore, pick the next letter. Doesn't work for me, my brain won't ever stop.
I noticed I have to visualize stuff in my head to fall asleep so my adaptation is to pick a single letter and a single word, and visualize it in my head, using it, manipulating it, experiencing it, whatever. For example: letter P, word Pineapple, imagine you're holding a pineapple, you feel the roughness of it's skin in your hands, you throw it in the air and catch it again, you take a knife and slice it on a wooden table on the beach, etc.. The dream kicks in seconds. Without external interruptions, after a few minutes I'm asleep (instead of rummaging for hours).
If you notice you're stuck in a loop/pattern (for me anything about text, like reading or writing, and voice, like listening and speaking, or stressful scenarios), just pick a new letter, pick a new word, visualize it.
I pick a category, like fruits and vegetables or cars, and then try to come up with a word in that category that starts with every letter of the alphabet in order. To keep it relaxing I synchronize it with my breath. On the breath in, I note the letter I am on: "C" for example. On the breath out I note the word: "Cantaloupe". If I don't have a word for that letter by the time I breath out, no big deal, I conceptualize whatever was in my mind at that point and then repeat the letter on the next breath in.
Another thing I do that works well for me is just counting breaths. On the breath in I think "in-n-n-n-n" and on the breath out I count. When I lose count, and I am still awake, I start again from 0, as any sane programmer would ;-).
ETA: For a couple of months I have been doing a short gratitude routine as I am getting into bed. I acknowledge the good and positive things that happened during the day, and I tell myself that I did a good job (if I did) or that I did as well as I could today and that's good enough for today. Then I think, "And now it's time for rest. I've been looking forward to this." If any part of me starts thinking about the day again or thinks about tomorrow, I gently reassure it that I will attend to all of this tomorrow morning and that now it's quiet time and time to rest.
All of this plus 250 mg of magnesium an hour before bed has made falling asleep super consistent and easy.
I do something similar. If I'm not anxious but awake, I try to just visualise random stuff, random worlds. Somehow my brain is decent at that and I slowly drift off, though I sometimes get a jolt from reality.
Recently I found that when I'm anxious it's better to try and imagine doing a hobby. I just imagine myself trail running. Reduces anxiety, pushes me towards sleep.
I live at a 36-hours-at-a-time rhythm and it's absolutely brutal seeing as its 5:30am and I should have been in bed a long time ago. Going to give this a go and report back. I did the lucid dream thing for awhile but holding a heavy object in my hand and then dropping it got quite annoying (to train yourself to be more aware of when you enter a hypnagogic state).
I have had sleep issues my whole life, but what works for me is:
- Get up same time every day
- Moderate excersize every other day
- Stable diet, homecooked healthy food and no soda/beer/candy whatsoever.
- Dim the lights after dinner
- No screens after 8pm (e-ink screens are allowed), no podcasts, no digital content consuming.
- Actively aim to be bored everyday
- Read a good book before bedtime
Yeah, melatonin makes me feel like crap after a few days of use and it's hit or miss.
One thing I've done for years is focus on breathing.
Get in a comfortable position and totally relax your body.
Slowly take a deep breath.
Then exhale until you can't no more. Repeat this 10 or 15 times.
For whatever reason, this works for me probably 75% of the time. The other 25%, forget it.
Have you tried smaller doses of melatonin? Can be hard to do as the smallest dosage I usually see at stores is still much higher than what I’ve found to be my max dose
What works best for me is to take a book, on paper, preferably on a boring topic (depends on you, obviously) and just start reading. Usually my eyes drop in a matter of minutes. Once I wake up, startled by the book falling over, I kill the lights and go to sleep. Works every time, any time.
If I lie in bed and just think stuff, it takes much longer.
Seconding this...also works well when I wake up in the middle of the night to get back to sleep which unfortunately seems to happen more and more every year.
There are a lot of imaging and thought techniques you can use, eg imagine sittimg beside a small stream, while the water guegles by, watch the leaves and sticks flowing past. or imagine events im yoir life floating by, or imagine being a duck floating by, swimming, or flying, etc. There are also body relaxation techniques ( zen , meditation, etc ) There are many many techniques available.
What works for me is to pretend that I'm asleep. And it's good to be able to recognize the first phase of sleep – it's that state that you think that if somebody asked if you're asleep you'd think to yourself "no, I'm not", but have an excuse of "I don't feel like actually talking".
Box breathing (2 secs in, 2 secs hold, 2 secs out, 2 secs hold) or meditation both usually help if I can’t fall asleep. Physical exercise during the day also helps.
My mom always told me to do this as a child. I’ve never understood this nor any other visualization technique. I have never found this to be possible. At best I actively think about not thinking which is counterproductive but even then within about 10 seconds my mind has already wandered. And if I’m not actively trying I’ll always have some other thoughts popping in no matter what
I'm pretty sure at this point I have familial advanced sleep phase syndrome of an unknown genetic etiology [1].
Wake up stupid early in the morning, get drowsy very early in the evenings etc. For a long time due to social pressure/habit I'd just power through the evening drowsiness. That lead to me only being able to sleep six hours or so (due to waking up stupid early), which over time lead to a substantial sleep debt.
Going to bed early helps a lot, but over time it seems like I easily start drifting earlier and earlier. I've recently had some success stabilizing my rhythm using sublingual melatonin when I first waken at 2-3am. Let's me get a couple extra hours of additional quality sleep which is a lifesaver. Wears off quick enough that by 9am or so it's basically out of my system.
I've actually been tinkering/hacking the last year or so on sleep tracking wearables. Initially focused on EEG/HRV monitoring but I'm taking a very modular approach and ultimately want to build a full set of sensors/effectors/etc.
I've recently been experimenting a lot with skin temperature gradients, turns out in the lead up to sleep it's not just blood flow in the brain that is altered [2].
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_sleep_phase_disorder#...
2. https://journals.physiology.org/doi/pdf/10.1152/ajpregu.2000...
You might know this, but sleep debt doesn't just keep piling on. Eventually, and rather quickly, you may begin to experience permanent brain damage after a few nights of sleep deprivation.
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/STR.0000000000000453
From one insomniac to another... In the past I've been lucky if I get 3 hours total of sleep in a night due to physical pain disorders. I have deep trouble getting into NREM. I lucid dream often and my brain is active even when I'm supposed to be sleeping. In my dreams, I have to be careful not to be too energetic or overstimulated, or I will wake up.
I've had insomnia and night terrors since before I was regularly forming memories. An abusive childhood intensified that. I'm in my early 30s now and the damage is clear, both physically and to my life in general.
As much as I fear them, sleeping medication seems like the only way to save myself from early onset dementia or not accomplishing certain goals due to a perpetually low energy budget. It also has prevented me from losing weight. Sleep studies have shown that people who get frequently woken up while sleeping can burn around 50% less fat.. In my case, that's my entire calorie deficit which means in order to lose weight I have to basically starve myself. Melatonin, etc. have never worked for me.
All this to say... Don't wait for the damage to build up even more. Sleeping medication might change your life. I'm hoping it restores mine.
Taking melatonin has been mentioned several times in different threads here, and I just wanted to add my experience...
I find that taking the minimal amount make a big difference here, and it's about 3 micro-grams (not milli-grams) for me. The trick is to get some liquid melatonin drops. There is a brand that has 3 milligrams per 30 drops as a recommended dosage, so I just take 3 or so drops and let them dissolve on my tongue. Using liquid drops this way, there is less of a sleep hangover, and It workes faster that way, too.
I think I read about 3 micrograms as more appropriate for most people on lesswrong, but it might have been somewhere else. It's working really well for me, with frequent breaks from it, for five or more years.
That would be 300 micrograms
As pointed out above me, 250-300 micrograms is what you likely meant. You might have to hunt for such low doses. I split a 1 mg tab in quarters. Repeated studies have shown that there is not an increase in efficacy, but there is an increase in adverse effects when doses are higher. See https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...
Products exist in US and recently Canada too
Melatonin has helped, of course. But a few other steps I had read on a Reddit thread [0] also helped me - specifically the point about relaxing facial muscles. For some reason, doing this also seems to calm the mind and reduce random thoughts.
[0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/sleep/comments/1bn2emp/how_do_yall_...
Tangential: Have had sleep disorders my whole life. Until I read an article here about melatonin (an article that was about substances that have an effect on longevity). So I started taking melatonin every night, 0.5mg. I must say: Never had this kind of deep sleep. Over such a long period of weeks (since I started taking it). My Garmin watch has a sleep tracker. And it confirms that I get way more deep sleep.
Two things:
1. Too much deep sleep might not be desirable.
2. Sleep staging by activity trackers is generally pretty inaccurate. Garmin is no exception.
Could you please elaborate on 1. ?
Different processes happen during different sleep stages. Typically people go from light sleep to deeper sleep stages (slow wave), to REM in a cyclical pattern. We go through each of the stages roughly every 90 minutes of "quality sleep". There's usually more deep sleep at the start of the night, and more REM towards the end of the night.
If you end up with too much deep sleep (e.g. after being very physically exhausted for a while), you will have little or no REM sleep and your sleep quality will suffer.
It's not just "too much deep sleep" that could fuck things up, being woken up multiple times can also mess up your sleep cycle, whether it's by crying children or sleep apnea.
I am considering taking melatonin supplements. Could you recommend any? I wake up several times in the night.
My understanding is that melatonin helps you fall asleep, but doesn't help you stay asleep.
In general, I have no trouble falling asleep, but I typically wake up once or twice at night and am usually unable to sleep more than 5.5 hours. I've tried 3mg Melatonin tablets in Ecuador, and I've tried a couple of different brands of 10mg time-release Melatonin gummies from the US. None of them had any noticeable effect on me.
The only thing that has worked so far, is physical activity. We just moved to Europe, and the first two weeks was a lot of buying and building furniture, slept great those two weeks. Now that I'm back to my normal office worker life, my sleep has also gone back to not being great.
(I track my sleep using the AutoSleep app on iOS, wearing an Apple Watch at night)
Melatonin has a short half life (~1h), that's why melatonin receptor agonists [1] are a thing. So just mechanistically it's unlikely to help with sleep maintenance.
Do you wake up after 5.5h at a consistent time of the day and the first half of the night is peaceful? If you fall back asleep do you then wake again shortly after?
I mean waking in the night can be many things (apnea, etc), but you could very well have a rather advanced sleep phase.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin_receptor_agonist
I am in Germany, so I cannot recommend any. Just one without any supplements, just melatonin.
I wish dm stores were available internationally
My understanding has always been that you habituate to melatonin after a few days. Is this not true?
The body will develop a tolerance (or the reverse, a sensitization reaction) to just about any substance that's taken regularly due to homeostasis. However, so long as you're taking a dose that nudges some physiologic signal/need in the right direction, your body's response to the substance will be minimal.
I'd be surprised if you can find anything this isn't true for.
A lack of studies on what the tolerance looks like for a particular substance does not imply that tolerance does not form.
In the case of melatonin: It's almost universally true that your sleep quality is worse than it was before once you stop taking it (for a few days at least). That's an indication that your body's equilibrium has changed from habitual use.
I don't believe there is any evidence that you develop a tolerance. As a side note, Melatonin changed my life.
Melatonin does have the potential for augmentation, but it isn’t a certainty or even the majority of people.
Oddly, the result isn’t a loss of initial efficacy but instead a ‘wide awake at 3am’ situation.
Not in my case. Never had this sleep quality. But maybe it's placebo after a few weeks? :)
FYI it's unlikely you will eventually develop a tolerance, but it's important to not increase dosage: https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-mi...
The linked article doesn't mention tolerance at all? I don't believe there is any evidence out there to suggest that melatonin tolerance is a thing.
You're right! Edited the post...thanks for pointing this out was actually a mistake on my part the article was about incorrect dosage which was the point I wanted to make.
If that damn beast would ever fall asleep!
Still listening to "Insomnia" from Faithless.
Tearing off tights with my teeth
Only slightly related, but I often try to find ways to fall asleep faster. One thing that seems to work in some situations is trying to imagine a void (like a white or gray plane) for a while. However, often enough this does not work and I wonder if anyone knows of tricks that work for her/him (without using Melantonin or other drugs).
On a side note, a good way to check your progress towards falling asleep is looking through your closed eyelids. The more movement (points, lights) you see, the more you're actually close to falling asleep.
A friend shared his technique with me, and after adapting it to my needs, it works well. None of the other commonly mentioned techniques ever worked for me, because they ask for focus, which is the opposite of what my brain needs to fall asleep.
Here's his technique: pick a letter of the alphabet, and find as much words that start with this letter as you can. Once you can't find words anymore, pick the next letter. Doesn't work for me, my brain won't ever stop.
I noticed I have to visualize stuff in my head to fall asleep so my adaptation is to pick a single letter and a single word, and visualize it in my head, using it, manipulating it, experiencing it, whatever. For example: letter P, word Pineapple, imagine you're holding a pineapple, you feel the roughness of it's skin in your hands, you throw it in the air and catch it again, you take a knife and slice it on a wooden table on the beach, etc.. The dream kicks in seconds. Without external interruptions, after a few minutes I'm asleep (instead of rummaging for hours).
If you notice you're stuck in a loop/pattern (for me anything about text, like reading or writing, and voice, like listening and speaking, or stressful scenarios), just pick a new letter, pick a new word, visualize it.
I pick a category, like fruits and vegetables or cars, and then try to come up with a word in that category that starts with every letter of the alphabet in order. To keep it relaxing I synchronize it with my breath. On the breath in, I note the letter I am on: "C" for example. On the breath out I note the word: "Cantaloupe". If I don't have a word for that letter by the time I breath out, no big deal, I conceptualize whatever was in my mind at that point and then repeat the letter on the next breath in.
Another thing I do that works well for me is just counting breaths. On the breath in I think "in-n-n-n-n" and on the breath out I count. When I lose count, and I am still awake, I start again from 0, as any sane programmer would ;-).
ETA: For a couple of months I have been doing a short gratitude routine as I am getting into bed. I acknowledge the good and positive things that happened during the day, and I tell myself that I did a good job (if I did) or that I did as well as I could today and that's good enough for today. Then I think, "And now it's time for rest. I've been looking forward to this." If any part of me starts thinking about the day again or thinks about tomorrow, I gently reassure it that I will attend to all of this tomorrow morning and that now it's quiet time and time to rest.
All of this plus 250 mg of magnesium an hour before bed has made falling asleep super consistent and easy.
I do something similar. If I'm not anxious but awake, I try to just visualise random stuff, random worlds. Somehow my brain is decent at that and I slowly drift off, though I sometimes get a jolt from reality. Recently I found that when I'm anxious it's better to try and imagine doing a hobby. I just imagine myself trail running. Reduces anxiety, pushes me towards sleep.
I live at a 36-hours-at-a-time rhythm and it's absolutely brutal seeing as its 5:30am and I should have been in bed a long time ago. Going to give this a go and report back. I did the lucid dream thing for awhile but holding a heavy object in my hand and then dropping it got quite annoying (to train yourself to be more aware of when you enter a hypnagogic state).
Non 24h sleep syndrome or something else?
Yes. I have no off switch.
I have had sleep issues my whole life, but what works for me is: - Get up same time every day - Moderate excersize every other day - Stable diet, homecooked healthy food and no soda/beer/candy whatsoever. - Dim the lights after dinner - No screens after 8pm (e-ink screens are allowed), no podcasts, no digital content consuming. - Actively aim to be bored everyday - Read a good book before bedtime
May sound like a lot, but I sleep now.
>No screens after 8pm (e-ink screens are allowed), no podcasts, no digital content consuming.
Who needs the exception of e-ink screens are OK?
To read books?
There are several things I use:
- think of past enjoyable moments (for me it's hiking, I usually don't go very far until I fall to sleep)
- box breathing
- hold breath for N sec then release, then N+10, then ...
- try to relax your body from top to bottom (forehead, eyes, cheeks, mouth, ...)
- imagine your body is very light, like your floating in the air
- imagine your body is very heavy, like a block of concrete sinking into your bed
- pick TAOCP and try to solve the exercises ;)
Yeah, melatonin makes me feel like crap after a few days of use and it's hit or miss.
One thing I've done for years is focus on breathing. Get in a comfortable position and totally relax your body. Slowly take a deep breath. Then exhale until you can't no more. Repeat this 10 or 15 times.
For whatever reason, this works for me probably 75% of the time. The other 25%, forget it.
On a side note, I'm sure most of us here can relate to this song. https://youtu.be/vaG4vGsIFMQ
Have you tried smaller doses of melatonin? Can be hard to do as the smallest dosage I usually see at stores is still much higher than what I’ve found to be my max dose
Was going to reply the same thing.
I buy 1 mg tablets and even that is too much for me. I use a razor blade to cut them into 1/6th pieces.
Takes less than 30 minutes to kick in.
A lot of other comments here about poor sleep I believe are the result of drinking caffeinated products past 1 PM.
What works best for me is to take a book, on paper, preferably on a boring topic (depends on you, obviously) and just start reading. Usually my eyes drop in a matter of minutes. Once I wake up, startled by the book falling over, I kill the lights and go to sleep. Works every time, any time.
If I lie in bed and just think stuff, it takes much longer.
Seconding this...also works well when I wake up in the middle of the night to get back to sleep which unfortunately seems to happen more and more every year.
> trying to imagine a void (like a white or gray plane) for a while
Huh, mine is a plane in level flight. (From outside.) Preferably smaller. Depending on my mood it’s retro or like a fighter jet.
There are a lot of imaging and thought techniques you can use, eg imagine sittimg beside a small stream, while the water guegles by, watch the leaves and sticks flowing past. or imagine events im yoir life floating by, or imagine being a duck floating by, swimming, or flying, etc. There are also body relaxation techniques ( zen , meditation, etc ) There are many many techniques available.
What works for me is to pretend that I'm asleep. And it's good to be able to recognize the first phase of sleep – it's that state that you think that if somebody asked if you're asleep you'd think to yourself "no, I'm not", but have an excuse of "I don't feel like actually talking".
Box breathing (2 secs in, 2 secs hold, 2 secs out, 2 secs hold) or meditation both usually help if I can’t fall asleep. Physical exercise during the day also helps.
For me, holding my breath for as long as I can and then releasing it also helps.
Sounds trite but my surefire method is to stop thinking. I literally lie down, close my eyes, and stop thinking. Sleep comes quickly.
My mom always told me to do this as a child. I’ve never understood this nor any other visualization technique. I have never found this to be possible. At best I actively think about not thinking which is counterproductive but even then within about 10 seconds my mind has already wandered. And if I’m not actively trying I’ll always have some other thoughts popping in no matter what
all I can offer you is an intrusive thought with a song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v64-DpcLEvI
sometimes what works for me is literally inventing a movie in my mind. Then the awake part take the backseat...
[dead]