No pharmaceutical aids preferably
Progressive muscle relaxation. I’m not sure if it’s the actions I take or that it’s enough to keep my mind on but kind of boring.
Eating something potato related. It has to be real potato though. Mashed potatoes or baked potatoes seem to make me pretty sleepy.
Either sex or masterbait. I fall asleep fairly quick after.
Relax each muscle one by one, slow breathing.
Melatonin is kind of a gray area between pharmaceutical and not, so I’m going to mention it. Feel free to ignore me if it’s still a bridge too far. That said, it sounds like your body may just not be producing enough melatonin. It’s the sleep hormone that you produce naturally. I try to be pretty conservative with it, because taking a hormone supplement too frequently can cause your body to stop producing enough, but if your body already isn’t producing enough, you may not have much to lose.
Shitty answer: Benedryl. The next morning doesn’t go well.
Real answer: What you don’t do is lay in bed and try to sleep, your mind will just keep going. Do something low impact. Read a magazine or book, nothing that evokes a fear, anger, or excited response. I read social media feeds I have constructed to weed out the ragebait and doomer crap. Mostly tech stuff. I use a red light filter so the screen doesn’t keep me going.
weed
Too right. I’ve only gotten high a few times, but when I do, I barely experience it because I fall asleep so quickly.
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.
I also do most of these. Day dreaming is a hard no as its often why i can’t sleep. Wiill walk around inside of my house instead of the block. And never wear socks to bed. Could see random things like that helping for other people though.
I start by meditating, clearing all thought, and concentrating on how it feels to breathe. I definitely wouldn’t stay in bed if its been more than 15-20 mins. Clear sign to me something needs to change for some amount of time. The frustration would start to grow where it would become its own issue I’d have to overcome.
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.
Oh man, I use the hell out of those things. They’re wonderful
I cast a draining/depressant spell on My mind to reduce cognitive activity.
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.
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!).
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.
Imagine your body slowly floating up to the ceiling. Or conversely, sinking down through the mattress.
The sinking thing works for me!
I did that as a kid, worked for me too.
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
