Do you suffer from hot sleeping? I do. I sleep best with a big pile of blankets on me. I sleep with a weighted blanket among others. But that combined with a prediliction for hot sleeping, and I have trouble waking up in the night in a sweat.
I got so desperate, I actually almost bought one of those expensive cool water circulation systems. But then I realized a low tech solution. It takes a lot of heat to melt water. The amount of energy required to melt two liters of water is of the same magnitude as the amount of body heat given off by a human over the course of a night.
Specifically, I learned that those old timey rubber water bottles for bed use? They works just as well as cold packs as hot packs. So I got a few of those and tried it. And it's helped immensely at improving my sleep.
I have two cheap Amazon special rubber water bottles with felt covers on them. I keep them in the freezer. Each night I grab the bottles, which freeze solid through the day. I simply sleep with them under the covers, and it immensely improved my sleep. The felt covers on the bottle act as insulators to ameliorate the temperature of the bottles. You can sleep with one against you and it just feels mildly cooling. It doesn't feel like sleeping on a block of ice.
I would say this method is about 90% as effective as one of those expensive bed water cooling systems. I researched those, and they cost $500 and up. Plus they required regular maintenance and had all sorts of problems with leaks and mold. This? This system cost me about $20 and requires no more work than taking something in and out of the freezer.
If you have problems with hot sleeping, try the stupid solution first. Buy some big rubber water bottles and freeze them, or try other cold pack solutions or similar total heat capacity.
Doesn't this leave you with wet patches in your bed though?
It doesn't leave wet patches. If you used the bottle without the cover, it would. But the cover makes it so that heat energy only slowly leaches into it. In other words, the surface of the covered bottle is probably around 60F/16C. And the surface is fluffy, not smooth.
Thank you. Just ordered one and I’m very excited to try this. I’ve been researching the cooling loops but they seem impractical and too expensive..
Feel free to reply to this after you give it a try. It worked for me, but I'm curious if it works for anyone else.
timey rubber water bottles for bed use
So in the UK we just call these "hot water bottles"
Which I'm just now really thinking about as a term and on reflection it's a pretty rubbish name for them
It's doubtless an artifact of history. Rubber water bottles like that go way back. Before the days of electric blankets, space heaters, boiler heating, gas furnaces, etc, heating was often provided by wood- or coal-burning stoves. With a rubber bladder like that, you could boil some water on the stove and take it to bed with you. If all you have is a fire to keep you warm, it's hard to use that fire to directly heat your bed. For someone sleeping in a cold bedroom in an old drafty house, a hot water bottle and a pile of blankets was how you often got through the cold winter nights. And stoneware versions of the same concept go back at least half a millennium.
But ice available in the home? Some homes in the late 19th century and earlier sometimes had ice boxes - literally just insulated boxes that you could put ice in to keep food cold. The ice had to be cut off of frozen lakes in the winter and stored in big insulated ice houses for the rest of the year. But such ice would be too expensive and precious to fill a water bottle with. Maybe someone really wealthy could afford to do that. Maybe you could do it if someone was severely ill and needed a fever cooled. But pre-WW2, even if you had access to ice, it was too precious for most people to be able to justify using it just as a sleep aid.
To make something like this practical, you really need a modern freezer. Even in the days of ice boxes, you wouldn't be able to pull something like this off unless you were willing to use up two liters of expensive bought ice every night. That's just not something most people could afford.
The first domestic freezers as we know them now didn't appear until the 1940s. And it took decades for them to become ubiquitous in the homes of people in wealthy countries. It's only in the last 50 years or so that you could just assume a random person in a developed country has access to a freezer. And there are certainly still people who don't have such access.
So yeah, we've had hot water bottles for many centuries, but the concept of a cold bottle or cold pack is only something that's been feasible for less than a single human lifetime. We were doubtlessly calling these things "hot water bottles" generations before the freezer was invented. It turns out they can also be used as ice packs, but the name was already established.
Work out. It helps reduce stress and just makes you more tired
- If you're the kind of person to keep yourself busy all day, then when you're trying to go to sleep might be the first time all day you've allowed your mind to wander! You need to find some other time in the day to allow yourself to daydream. Some tips are to not read anything while in the bathroom or turn the radio off in your car if you have a commute. Maybe even schedule some time to sit and think about things if you can.
- Only use your bed for sleep and sex. Reading, eating, browsing on your phone, watching TV, or any other activity should be done elsewhere. This way you train yourself that it's sleeptime when you're in bed.
- This is probably something that can't be done if you have a rotating shift, but go to sleep on a regular schedule. Go to sleep at the same time every day. Staying up late should a rare occurrence. Your body will become tired at the same time each day and it's much easier to fall asleep when you keep a schedule.
but how do i summon wondering at my own volition when i want it to instead of descending upon us when i'm trying to focus
Cheap version: listen to the sounds of your breathing. Relax all your muscles from head to toe, then just try and isolate the sounds of air coming and going as you breathe. Focus on it long enough and hopefully you pass out.
Expensive version: https://www.moonbird.life/products/moonbird - set it for 4 seconds in, 6 seconds out and just bring it under the covers and get cozy.
Your cheap version is my top recommendation. Basically, learn to practice mindfulness and use that when you go to bed. Focus on your body sinking into the bed, feeling cozy.
This is similar to the meditation technique of anapanasati (mindfulness of the breath). I couple that with repeating in my head “rising” on inhale, “falling” on exhale and focusing on the tickling sensation on the tip of your nose with each breath. Next thing I know I’m waking up in the morning.
Sleeping is my super power - I fall asleep within two or three minutes every night. Here's how I do it.
- No caffeine ever.
- Listen to the same white noise track every night while sleeping. Your brain will recognize that the track equals time to sleep.
- Go to bed at the same time every day, even on weekends.
- Don't hang out in bed. The bed is only for sleeping or sex. No phone use in bed.
Not possible when you works different shifts
To add to this. If you can't sleep after about 15-20 minutes get out of bed and do something to relax your brain. Reading or meditating works well. Definitely no phone or TV, don't read anything captivating. Read something boring you aren't into. After you feel 'sleep pressure' go back to bed.
Over time this helps your body associate the bed with just sleeping. But it takes time and dedication. Find a routine.
Also highly recommend always going to bed and getting up at the same time, even weekends.
I’m gonna chime in here. My wife asks me this a lot because she too has trouble going to and staying asleep. I however have some kind of sleep superpower. I can be asleep within 2 minutes after going horizontal.
I’ve always done this: start building a scene in your head. Any scene. Action, nature, whatever. Now picture yourself there in first person. Focus on the details. Make sure the trees have leaves. The pavement has lines and cracks and texture. Imagine feeling the wind on your body. From grass to cars to sky paint as detailed a picture as you can. Begin to form a story. Walk around and interact with things, people, animals. Maybe you have a storyline. As a boy I had an action sequence I would play out every night. Cuz you know. Boys. But as I got older those turned into hikes in fun places. Or keeping company with my current crush. Or a fun road trip…You get the idea.
I promise not long after you begin you will naturally begin to drift off. At least this is what has always come naturally to me.
Good luck and sweet dreams!!!
People have said to relax your face and jaw. Take it a step further and relax your tongue from the roof of your mouth. It sounds silly, but I found it works for me.
That was a tip from the other site I saw years ago, and now if I'm tired and have 15 minutes I can usually grab a power nap by keeping this in mind.
This sounds very much like what I read about how pilots on the front line rest. They would spend a lot of time in the air, and anytime there was downtime you took it. Some kind of research went into it and they came up with an entire process that would involve relaxing your body from head to toe, and then visualizing yourself somewhere else, like a boat in a lake or relaxing on a hillside. If you fail, you do the whole thing over. With enough training your mind becomes very adaptive and you can fall asleep faster and in highly disruptive environments. I believe it also had roots in meditation, where the more you do it the easier it gets.
wear yourself out during the day. easier to fall asleep if you're exhausted
Don't use blue lights. That includes most lights. Use red or orange lights after dark. Blue light wakes you up. (I mean do this in addition to some of the other suggestions.)
For me I need some background noise. Something to keep my mind from wandering.
I used to have a playlist of more relaxing songs I'd listen to when trying to fall asleep. But lately I honestly just put on a youtube video I've seen before. In particular videos where it's mostly just someone talking about something. Being the computer nerd I am vwestlife of cathode ray dude are my go tos
I fall asleep basically every night to a video essay on YouTube. Special thanks to Fern, Lemmino, and Tilted.
I do this in recent times, but I have to be honest, it's clearly less helpful and worse than the old days when I fell asleep to a book. And even now when I try substituting a paper book in for audio or video content I fall asleep faster.
So I guess that's a tip? Paper over audio over video?
If you have the "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" like me, get a fan.
Minecraft Sweden on loop at low volume
Legendary track. Everything from the original C418 Minecraft is so soothing.
Relax all the muscles in your face.
Specifically the jaw.
I found that I was unconsciously clenching my jaw and would lie awake for hours. Once I started consciously unclenching I would fall asleep really quickly.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0VMUYmhGI3Oqfb0V7X5R2EXoFkrJXOIj&si=SxhUM_qhNuCNd97s
Scientifically composed to put you to sleep. I’ve been listening to it for a few weeks now both with headphones and with the phone on the pillow.
NGL that type of music gives me more anxiety
I was curious too.
After listening to a bit of the first and then randomly a few seconds of a few more songs, I agree. I don't like my night time music to build up or go from calm to a sudden full orchestra.
That being said, I did find one I liked, called Ricter:Aria (pt1).
https://youtu.be/0_6jmOmDUes?si=pMBVlb75bMMCEpVP
Personally I have a playlists of music that works for me. Some nights it helps, others I end up shutting it off. Everyone's different.
Beside music, there's a lot of other external factors that could be affecting your sleep (ignoring internal factors, see a therapists or something for those).
- Your pillow. is it flat and time to replace or too new and puffy). You might be able to toss it in the dryer on low for 10 mins to get some oomf back, that or it will explode.
- bed. too firm, too soft, too old, sometimes flipping the mattress 180 so head side is now the foot side helps.
- blanket. are you too cold without, too hot with?
- PJs, are they too heavy, scratchy material?
- room temp/humidity. Is the room comfortable, is there good air flow?
- light, is it too dark, too bright?
- does that goofy branch outside the window look a person?
Been using asmr for years. Probably not for everyone, but works well enough for me. Also, I sleep infinitely better with background white noise of some sort, but that's due to tinnitus :/
My SO has been using ASMR with some ear buds for years. It occupies her mind and helps her relax enough to fall asleep. Great stuff.
She also needs her fan... Or some other form of white noise. It may be an ADHD thing.
I was searching for the same thing recently, and found someone who suggested choosing a category, e.g. city names, and going through the alphabet thinking of one for each letter. I find it works pretty well to sort of occupy my mind and help me drift off.
This, but I personally find it important to emphasize that you should incorporate slow methodical breathing (box breathing). On the inhale, I focus on the next letter (just the letter, e.g.: "A"). Then on the exhale, I think of the thing (e.g.: "Artichoke").
If I can't think of anything I try again on the same letter a few times and eventually skip if I can't. I'm trying to sleep, not stress myself out 😅
Seriously though, this is a fantastic method if you struggle with racing thoughts at night.
No.
By which I mean... I've tried many tips/tricks and none have consistently worked.
I listen to video game retrospectives. I don't game anymore but these guys yapping on and on about morrow wind or whatever for 3 hours puts me to sleep immediately. I never played these games which is why I choose them. If I choose games I'm familiar with I'll watch it instead of zoning out.
Check out down the rabbit hole's 6 hour video about Eve for pure audio Xanax.
Stop thinking about falling asleep. With your inner voice tell yourself you're going to stay up all night. Close your eyes, relax, lie still, and tell yourself that you're going to stay up all night; you'll pass out after a while.
Also invest in a high quality white noise generator or weighted blanket.
Don't use your phone at night. If you absolutely have to, enable adaptive warm light (if there's such a feature on your phone), which gradually turns the white balance to warm in the evening. This is because staring at the screen will send the signals to your brain to wake up, especially the blue-ish spectrum of light, plus whatever content you're engaging with (news, social media, texts from friends) will make your mind occupied.
But again, best is to not use your phone at all.
Read a book. Pick a topic you're interested in, buy a book and just read before you sleep. Yes, I see the contradiction - an interesting book will make your mind occupied too. Yet I find that a book relaxes me in my own world, while on your phone you'll meet many different topics, lots of quick stimuli, maybe that's why. I don't know.
These strategies work for me.
Yellow zzzquil. The regular one works too but the yellow one is better.
Body Scan meditation exercise. https://youtu.be/BlWo7sqWLNk here is an example
When I had trouble sleeping, I would have even more trouble sleeping because I was upset I wasn’t sleeping. Then I read somewhere that just lying there with your eyes closed and not moving was like 80-90% as effective as actual sleep.
I didn’t bother to check if that was true, but it did allow me to let go of worrying whether I was sleeping. And that allowed me to actually fall asleep.
Breathing exercises to steady your heart rate
Meditation to clear your mind
Ultimately, becoming wholly present so that your mind is at rest. A clear mind and consciousness will wrap you in a comforting blanket and sweep you off to Dreamland!
I am a chronic insomniac. At my worst I can average less than 90 minutes of sleep in a 24 hour period, which is actually very dangerous. Before bed I eat some bland protein (plain super firm tofu and a handful of almonds), never carbs, and I microdose either Indica or if that is not available, Indica based Delta 8. Microdose is the key word here. I take two deep puffs and that's it. Enough for a little head buzz but not enough to get high. Bundle up, close my eyes, and most of the time fall asleep for a solid 4-6 hours.
cuddle with big dog
I like to think of nostalgic memories.
Noise canceling headphones plus Brownian noise.
https://archive.org/details/brownnoise_202103
In my case Sennheiser hd450bt.
Turn off phone data, so only regular texts from VIP can break through DND.
Solitaire, crosswords or codewords app to sleep. Voyager with pagination on if you really want to read but have an end page.
Exercise will control your circadian rhythm, set your metabolism on a more consistent routine, and help you sleep better. Endurance based exercises are best; cycling, swimming, running, rowing, etc. You need 1 hour every 3 days at a minimum in my experience. Don't think in terms of a week, just do it somewhere between daily and every 3 days no matter what. Even someone like me that has major chronic health problems from a broken neck and back manages to pull off this one. In fact, I fall apart and turn into a sleepless zombie if I fail to maintain my exercise routine. I'm likely one of the most sleep deprived people here. This works when nothing else does or is possible.
I've found that I have to keep my hands off my body, the stimulation of being touched keeps me alert.
for me, i find background watching/ listening to history videos really effective. Not sure what the rationale there is, but that's how it goes.
Antiques Roadshow.
I agree with what other people have said plus:
The bed should only be used for sleeping, when you wake up get out of bed and don't go back. Don't use your laptop or phone in bed, if you still have a tv - don't watch it in bed.
This helps set the situational subconscious expectation that the bed is for sleeping.
People ignore this. Actually do it.
No phone or books in bed.
Exercise
Turn on some video without commercials and something at a more or less constant volume, like Ancient Aliens or How It's Made. Set the sleep timer for 30 min. Turn the screen off if your TV supports it. Set the volume low/moderate. Get comfortable in bed in your favorite position, close your eyes, and listen to the video. I usually don't ever hear the sleep timer turn it off.
I did this back when I had insomnia. It worked great. I would usually do it while some movie that I am very familiar with was playing, even if it had a lot of sound variation. For me, that involved a lot of Jaws and Alien movies.
5mg melatonin and 200mg L-Theanine works for me. I order from Thorne. I believe they are reputable.
According to my SO's sleep doctor, most people don't need that high of a dose. He recommends 1mg.
Two things that helped me in the past year:
- Avoiding caffeine after 10:00AM or so. I cut coffee completely, but I noticed positive effects by just drinking all caffeine before ~10:00AM.
- Sleep mask helped me a ton. Turns out we are super sensitive to the most minute amount of light.
- At least for me, not eating past ~6:00PM makes falling asleep way easier.
- Regular exercise (of any kind) allows you to fall sleep easier. Probably has to do with regulating hormones/biological subsystems.
- NO PHONE on bed. Bed is only for sleep and sex. In my opinion anyway.
Hope this helps!
"not eating past ~6:00PM" sounds like nursing home to me
"not eating past ~6:00PM" sounds like nursing home to me
I used to try to count my breaths and breathe as slow as I could, but I found that my mind would wander and not in a good way.
Lately, what works for me is actually counting my pulse because it's rapid enough that I can't think about anything else. And at the same time, I try to get it as low as I can, which can have the benefit of putting you to sleep
I turn the brightness on my phone as low as it goes, turn on night shift to get rid of blues, and read (white text on black background / dark mode).
Don’t read in continuous scroll; find a way to turn the page with minimum animation.
Read something you don’t find so compelling as to keep turning pages but enough that you’re happy to read.
I find history books most successful at the moment since there is often no desire by the author to build tension, suspense, etc that keeps you alert.
I have been practicing the 99 count down of breath. Each breath count down.
Slow down your breathing as you count. Your thoughts will drift off and that’s good, but come back to it as soon as you realize you stopped counting. I rarely get past 50. The more you practice the better you will get at it, as sleep likes routine.Don't try to fall asleep.
The effort is what's keeping you awake. Sleep when you feel tired.
If you don't feel tired at night, then you may not be doing enough mental or physically engaging activities during the day.
I used to struggle with sleep. It turned out I’m bipolar. Thankfully, it mellows with age and I learned how to manage it. I was probably ~23 when I got diagnosed. Just sharing because it’s useful to know that sometimes there’s a very specific reason why sleep seems elusive.
You can get sleeping pills for such a situation. I also use melatonin gummies. You can get CBD gummies in a lot of places. Meditation might help.
The most important aspect of sleep management for me is keeping a solid routine. I go to bed at the same time every night and get up early even on my days off. Breaking that routine leads to issues, resuming the routine solves them quickly.
That's a great question to not have a good answer to. I've been smoking weed and drinking vodka cause I'm bored and will inevitably pass out eventually but that's not good advice
If you have trouble sleeping in general, it might be a bad habits thing. Melatonin supplements can help to get you tired. 1mg before you go to bed is enough, if you try to relax and sleep. They don't do anything if you do stuff that keeps you awake however.
This particularly anything exciting like sports, listening to energetic music, watching tense movies, playing fast or demanding games etc. Avoid any such thing for at least two hours before you try to sleep.
History documentaries with good narrator and minimal loud music
For a
freecheap white noise generator, put a small drop of hydrogen peroxide solution in your ear.Where do you get your free hydrogen peroxide?
A lil weed before bed has been a game changer for me
