It’s actually like the title asks; What does everyone here do when you can’t sleep and are wide awake besides being on phone?
So let’s say it’s in the middle of the night and you are unable to sleep. You have to keep things soundless due to family or partner.
Trying to get the phone usage significantly lower when being in bed but it feels like nothing can replace the ‘easiness of mindlessly scrolling’.
I have those nights and I hate them.
I stay in bed and at least rest the body. I found that getting on an electronic device keeps me up.
For me there is often a problem that causes to not be able to sleep, and I’ll try to solve that. Like being hungry, thirsty, radiator too warm, radiator not warm enough, I have some energy I need to get out, need to close the window, need to open the window. If nothing helps I get out of bed for a while and this makes me more tired after some time. I try to avoid scrolling because it just makes the time fly by without changing the circumstances or making me sleepy.
I lay completely still. Properly, completely still. I focus all my energy on not moving a single muscle besides what I need to breathe.
Then, while doing that, I try to conjure up elaborate fantasy scenes in my mind.
9 times out of 10 I’m gone within five minutes.
Not exactly quiet but works for me because of the layout of my house.
I go to the laundry room which is on the other side of the house from the bedrooms, turn the kitchen light on, laundry room like off (so it’s light enough to see but pretty dim), sit on the washer and play sad songs on my guitar.
It’s therapuetic and after about 20 minutes I’m just exhausted.
Listen to music, or watch stream vods, specifically Moist Critical’s. I do remember when I was really depressed I would put on Mitch Hedberg, it would laugh me to sleep.
Read or take a dose of melatonin.
I take a random number around 800 and start to count backwards in increments of 7. It’s kind of tedious and drowns out my other thoughts. I don’t think I’ve ever made it to zero :)
Of course you should use bigger numbers if your math skills are better.
I read a book. It’s quiet, it’s restful, it often helps me get back to sleep but even if it doesn’t it’s still relaxing and worthwhile.
Kindle with a dim backlight is perfect for this.
Happy my recent upgrade has the yellow backlight feature for just this reason
Reading books or playing video games. If I have the energy then also working on projects.
I mean, I know it’s entirely opposite to the accepted advice…but when I can’t sleep, I actually find it helpful to go on my phone.
Scrolling social media doesn’t help though. What helps is putting on long form videos on YouTube that aren’t overly engaging. It helps if you’ve seen them before too. If my thoughts are racing, having something else to focus on (but not too focused) helps a ton.
Sitting in the dark without a mild stimulus doesn’t help, despite what the common advice given seems to be.
I know you said you can’t have sound, but what about headphones?
How It’s Made, commercial bakery prep, or street food making are my go tos for long form videos to try to sleep.
Count from 1 to 10, then 10 to 1. With each number, relax your body a little more. When the mind strays, bring it back to counting. Repeat until unconscious.
If that isn’t working at all, get up, go to another room, play soft music at low volume on headphones, and depending on the circumstances read a book, jot stuff down, or just contemplate stuff. Chill until sleepy, then either go back to bed or just curl up where you are.
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I try to name unconnected things until I’m interrupted by a different thought, then when I realize I’ve gone off I play the unconnected naming game again. Doesn’t matter if there is a connection. Apparently this disorganized thinking is similar to sleep thoughts and can help get your brain in the mood for sleeping.
Example: sheep, glass, shelf, sock, alien, whisker, etc
Yes! This is almost exactly my technique. I try to do the naming in a steady rhythm, around one per second, picturing the thing in my mind while mentally saying the word.
My hypothesis is that it syncs up both sides of my brain at a timing that is in the delta wave frequency, same as a deep sleep state
I do visualisation techniques. Mostly, I’m on a soft picnic blanket on a hill with long grass blowing gently with a mild breeze on a warm day. I can smell nearby flowers and I can hear a nearby brook bubbling over little rocks. I focus on the sounds, smells and visuals, and overall sense of peacefulness till my brain drowns out whatever is stressing me out and keeping me awake.
I very rarely have trouble sleeping, but when I do, this is what I’ve always done since childhood and it hasn’t failed me yet.
I lay there, with my eyes closed, resist any temptation to look at my phone or do anything else, make myself as comfortable as possible wrapped up in blankets and pillows and whatever
And I just kind of direct my mind towards something pointless and let it wander down that rabbit hole
Maybe I’ll imagine sort of a bunch of swirling lights and colors and just kind of watch them, look for patterns, etc.
Or I’ll make up stories. I’m no author, but I’ll imagine myself as maybe a super hero, or an astronaut, or a wizard, or any of those sort of stock characters, and I imagine myself saving the world, or fighting a dragon, or boldly going where no man has gone before. These stories I’m making up aren’t deep, they’re a crappy universe full of plot holes and the kinds of characters an elementary schooler playing make-believe would come up with, because of course the superhero I’m imagining myself as can fly and has heat vision and wolverine claws and can turn invisible and has super strength and…
Or I just kind of think about simple things I enjoy. Places I could go hiking with my dog, date nights with my wife, meals I’d like to cook for friends, etc.
Whatever it is, I just kind of let my mind wander down that road, it takes my mind off of whatever was keeping me awake, and after I while my focus begins to falter and I just sort of slip into sleep from there.
I’m pretty sure this kind of falls under the category of some kind of meditation. My work once did a mandatory “wellness retreat” as a “training” thing I had to go to. One of the things we did was a guided meditation session, and that felt like the same sort of thing (but for people who are boring and lack the imagination to think of a scenario to meditate on by themselves, imagining myself flying an x-wing through an asteroid field beats the pants off of imagining I’m walking through a meadow to the beach or whatever that lady was having us imagine)
Sometimes a little background noise is helpful. I’m not personally too picky about what it is, I like trip hop music for this purpose, or forest sounds, or just random YouTube videos (not even necessarily anything relaxing, I’ve fallen asleep to some machinist YouTubers plenty of times and the sound of a mill, lathe, band saw, grinder, etc. isn’t exactly what I’d call soothing.
And when all else fails, I rub one out
