Lemmings who can fall asleep within minutes of their head hitting the pillow, what's your secret?

Train yourself. Pavlov’s sleep. Every time you go to bed, watch/listen to the same thing. Eventually, your brain associate the thing with “time to sleep”. That’s how it works for me, anyway. I turn on the same movie and pass out in minutes. Don’t do it with one of your favorites, though.

And also, don’t do things like lay in bed watching TV or messing with your phone all the time. You want the bed to be mostly mentally associated with sleep

I got old.

The secret ingredient is exhaustion

I have what I self proclaim a "float switch". Once my head tilts a 45 degree angle, I fall asleep. I've been like this all my 39 years of existence. I cannot go to these new movie theaters labeled "Dream Lounger Ultra XL" with those reclining king size sofas because I can't justify paying $30 to take a nap.

My wife gets mad at me how fast I fall asleep. I can't fucking help it!

I fall asleep when my exhaustion overwhelms my anxiety; I get up when my anxiety overwhelms my exhaustion.

I hate sleep, so I get it over with as quickly as possible. I fall asleep quickly and I wake up quickly and spend as little time as possible in between

Masturbation

fap cum crash

No secret, I'm hammered before bed.

Within minutes?

I think I'm asleep in the split second before my head even touches the pillow.

No secret, just born with it.

Be tired enough. I jave ADHD and my strategy is to stay up until I am literally falling asleep. The next day can be tough sometimes though if I need to get up early. On those nights I just take Melatonin

I used to take at least an hour to fall asleep. Then I had two kids. I can now fall asleep within a minute or two.

Worth it.

Genetics
Don't even need to hit a pillow

As someone who used to be like that but now has a real fucked up sleep schedule due to unemployment, I can tell you the deciding factor is a consistent sleep period. The vast majority of my career has been waking up at 4am and going to sleep at 8 or 9pm. Thats easy to fall into and even when you're off your body just knows when its time to sleep and when its time to get up. Ive gotten up on time a few times despite the alarms failing to go off for whatever reason. You want good sleep? Set wake up and bedtime. Your body will adjust.

Parenthood. You reach the point of pure exhaustion somewhere around 6 months. Depending on your child, it can last for years.

No secret technique. I go to bed when I’m tired, I’m asleep as soon as I hit the pillow. Literally-sometimes I fall asleep on the way down to the pillow. Just how I’ve always been. /shrug

I usually fall asleep very quickly. Yes, having some kind of anxiety about the next day or such can keep me up and sometimes there's a night where I just don't seem to fall asleep instantly by myself.

Rule number one: Keep your bed the place you sleep in. Don't do anything else in it. You can't fall asleep because of anxiety? Get up, go somewhere else, try to deal with it/calm down and then get back to sleep.

If you don't know why you can't fall asleep, get up, try to wind down a bit. Maybe drink a little bit of water, go to the toilet, whatever then come back and try again. Try to keep the lights off or as dimmed as possible in that time.

Sometimes if that doesn't help, you can use some relaxation techniques to help. My go to: Lay down, find a comfy spot. The easiest: Focus on you I this moment. How does it feel in your bed? Focus on the warm fluffy place you're in. "Feel" how you sink in more and more into your pillow and mattress with every breath. Usually that's enough to get me to sleep. If you can't fall asleep doing this, go a bit further. Imagine you're in a meadow/on a beach/wherever in nature. Feel the imaginary sun on your skin. The sand/gras/moss/... Under your bare feet. Breathe the fresh air. Focus on your imaginary sensations and observe them.

Those imaginations can be hard if you're not used to them. It's OK if you're not focused on them in the beginning and that some random ideas and thoughts cross your mind and keep breaking the illusion. Find a way to deal with them. Accept that it has happened and move on. My preferred way to "block them": imagine a red heavy curtain falling like in a theater completely blocking your view of those thoughts/images. Acknowledge that you identified and consciously ignored them, "turn around" and return your focus to your imagination.

Some things that help me at least:

• Only use bed for sleeping.
• Don't use screens at least an hour before bed.
• Keep phone out of arms reach when in bed. Ideally in another room (these devices weigh heavy on our psychology, and the further they are from us, the less distracting they are).
• Leave blinds open at night so you wake up with the sun. Try to sync your body / circadian rhythm with your environment if possible.
• Get lots of walks and outside time during the day. If you have a lot of energy, work out more during the day.
• No coffee / intoxicants in the evening.
• Drink lots of water.
• Don't try to fix your sleep problems at night. Most of your remedies should be getting on the right foot the next day, and making habits of those.

I avoid screens (with one exception mentioned in a bit)—especially social media (including fediverse)—for like an hour ahead of time, read a book, make sure I'm well fed and hydrated without eating too close to bedtime, wear a sleep mask, and put on some soothing music, podcast or (mostly audio-based) video—with the screen off as soon as I hit play. Sometimes I even resort to my noise-cancelling headphones—or earplugs, if the sounds of my own breathing, swallowing, and bloodflow don't bother me too much that night. It helps to meditate and/or make sure to exercise/work hard enough to wear myself out each day.

Comfort helps. Finding the right position, having the right sheets, mattress, pillow, getting the ac/fan/heater so the room feels perfect, maybe cracking a window for fresh air. Feeling secure and safe where I'm sleeping, confident that I'll make it through the night without rude awakenings. Each isn't very powerful on its own, bit all together make a big difference in how readily I drift off.

Finally, I just try not to worry too much whether I fall asleep or not; if it's not looking like it's happening, I'll try to write a story for myself or draw a masterpiece in my minds eye. If that doesn't work, I'll focus on invoking some Wake-Induced Lucid Dreaming instead: forcing myself to lie perfectly still with my eyes closed, not even shifting for comfort nor to scratch itches nor swat flies, letting my mind wander wherever it wants to and just going with the hypnagogic hallucinations (they can get a little uncomfortable at times). This rarely has the intended effect, but I usually do end up waking up later, realizing I fell asleep without knowing it.

Disclaimer: my routine won't solve insomnia, it won't fix neurological disorders that affect circadian rhythm, it probably won't work on the first night even if you don't have the aforementioned issues. But adding any part of it to your routine (if you can) will make it just that much easier to fall sleep, when you can get around to it, even if you do have underlying conditions.

Also, at the risk of sounding like a boomer, screens are really bad for sleep. I grew up with them: my family had a habit of watching tv until bedtime, I trained myself to fall asleep while staring at my laptop (which I often have on my bed), or I'll pick up my phone after I put the laptop down. Nowadays I can feel how awake my brain gets when I check lemmy or read news around bedtime. If I have my phone near me, I'll have this nagging feeling to do "just one more" check of all my socials.

And it always keeps me awake until I will myself to turn it off and close my eyes.

I read fiction that requires almost no brain power. Either print or e-ink (no bright screen). Sherlock Holmes type stuff is like a sleeping pill.

Hey, I can do it in minutes. Just, like, 90-120 of them.

Self control mostly. I was taught to meditate by doing nothing but sitting, eyes closed, counting my breaths. It gave me a strong control over my thoughts. Now if I want to sleep, I lie down and turn my brain off. I’m out in a few minutes if it’s not too hot.

I day dream until I fall asleep, and it takes less than a minute. Doesn't matter if I just had a coffee, browsing a phone or whatever.

I like to think about designing something. What I'd do on a isolated island, designing the cockpit in a space craft or building a self sufficient homestead. Fiction stuff. Everything is possible. It doesn't work if I think about actual real life problems.

In my head i'm making a "movie". I make the same "movie" pretty much for 30 years now. I didn't got really far at all, i always start from the beginning and usually fall asleep bevore i reach the end of my already existing script. During the day or before i go to bed, i sometimes think about things that could happen in the "movie" later on, but i usually never make it that far. I often end up tweaking the beginning over and over until i fall asleep. It hardly ever takes me longer than 5 - 20min to fall asleep.

I only use my bed for sleeping, when I go lie down body knows it's night night time

I do now, but I used to lay in bed for multiple hours most nights before being able to fall asleep. Here's a list of things I do that I think help:

• get exercise during the day
• mostly avoid caffeine and alcohol
• avoid spending time in my bedroom other than for sleep
• take 0.5mg melatonin half an hour before bed
• only take naps occasionally and not as a regular habit
• sleeping mask + earbuds playing white noise + specific pillow arrangement that keeps my head in one place, basically a whole set of stimuli that is specific to sleeping
• eat breakfast in the morning

Had insomia in highschool. Didn't know what it was but taught myself guided meditation to overcome it.

For me, it was usually a song being stuck in my head. I would see myself floating up and away from the earth amd into space where the void was silent.

I also learned to pay attention to the mental "feel" I had while driftong off to sleep and pictured myself sinking into sleep like a submarine beneath the waves.

I know these aren't super helpful descriptions because if I could really verbalise and teach it I would be doing that for a living.

weed

I've had problems with insomnia in the past.

I generally find the easiest way for me to sleep is to be very physically tired.

Children.

Ive always had trouble sleeping, too active an imagination I suppose. So for me the trick was drugs, they work a treat... Maybe too much of a treat.

Constantly exhausted.

I can (mostly intentionally) zonk out pretty quickly in most sitting or laying positions. Clear calm mind helps me. I might use 1 of 2 exercises. The first I started using is for when my mind is too active from the day and thoughts just keep popping up, each time one does, I imagine putting it in a cardboard box, closing it up and tossing it away. The second one I use more when my body is physically tired, but I'm not mentally sleepy, I imagine I'm laying down at the trunk of an impossibly tall tree, looking at a single leaf near the edge that I can just barely make out, then imagine I'm rapidly floating up where I can see the trunk rapidly moving "down" behind my head, but the leaf just only so very barely seems to get any closer, and just keep that up until I fall asleep.

It's a ritual. The secret for me is basically counting sheep. Except, I don't actually count sheep, but there's lots of other things. Nowadays I can just clear my mind, but that was not always so.

When I was a kid, I had trouble sleeping. I was scared of the dark or something. So I closed my eyes and started focussing on the shapes I saw to take my mind off it. It were basic geometric shapes in different colors that floated to the edge of my vision. Than new ones would pop up. That helped and eventually I was using that methid every day to fall asleep fast.

In my teenage years I was into "lucid dreaming". Never managed to really do that, but they use special methods to fall asleep which also create some kind of ritual. Like looking at your alarm until you fall asleep. And than when it shows weird numbers, you know you're asleep, but that part is speculative lol.

Like that there are a few otger "rituals" you can try. I think tge most important part is a semi regular sleep schedule and a ritual. Also, don't watch tv or phone in bed. That's the kind of ritual to prevents you from sleeping.

A strict wake-up time that's the same every day helps. I put the alarm far away from my bed so I have no choice to drift back off.

All the usual tips apply: a cool room, no blue light at night, no distractions in the bedroom, get up for a while if it's not working...

Use a chair when doing anything productive, when laying down avoid using your phone at all, wait til your eyes glaze basically

I have separated my living space into "zones" in my head. When I am awake, I am not allowed in the sleeping zone, aka my bed. By only being in my bed when I am going to sleep, I have trained my body that it is the "sleeping place."

My husband can do that, and honestly I think it's because he doesn't sleep deeply enough, and gets up too early. So exhaustion works.

I fall asleep in a reasonable amount of time (satisfied with it) and exercise is the main thing I can tell helps me. Next most important I wait until I am actually sleepy before trying to sleep. Smaller factors but still helpful - progesterone (post menopause) before bed, putting down the phone an hour before bed, and a routine - I take a shower & do skincare.

ADHD...two minutes tops. Could even gulp down a litre of energy drinks or coffee right before. And I even have to force myself real hard to go to bed at around 3-4am. Otherwise I would just stay awake in my hobbies another day 😁

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That's never particularly been me, except when I'm sleep deprived. But in recent years I've been consistent about my sleep and wake times (including not changing them on weekends) and that seems to help a lot. According to my tracker it usually takes me about 10 min to fall asleep.

100% bedtime ritual. No screens for at least an hour, no social media, low light and quiet. I really hate not being able to sleep.

Narcolepsy - a blessing and a curse.

I can be out in 30 seconds. My wife hates it, LOL. Especially because I can self check and give her an accurate prediction of when I will be tired enough for sleep.

I.e. she might say "what do you want to do tonight? And I'll say " we can watch a short episode of a show or a quick board game,, because I have 45 minutes before I'll be asleep"

Main things are routine:

• I eat a balanced diet of protein, fats, carbs. And I don't often snack on sugary foods.
• I don't go to bed unless I'm actually tired.
• I wake up about the same time every day. Usually with the sunrise.
• I don't have worry, or anxiety, that would keep my brain busy at night. Everything can be tomorrow's problem.
• if my body is tired out, but my mind isn't, I'll put in earbuds and listen to a podcast in bed , but with everything set for sleeping. Lights out, eyes shut, comfortable in the covers.

Pot.

Waking up early everyday, and getting stoney mcstone stoned about an hour before bed each night. Fucking bliss.

I'm an introverted person who finds people exhausting, and I'm around people all day long. I hit some kind of point of extreme burnout about three years ago and things never let up, so I'm functional pretty much all the time but if I get any peace and quiet for more than about 30 seconds I just pass out indefinitely until someone wakes me up again lol.

Always been like that. I fall asleep on planes before take off and wake up when we hit tarmac.

I tire my brain out, whenever I lay down, I dont want to move at all, I fall asleep in whatevery uncomfy position dehydrated

My approach:

Get really comfortable, making sure nothing is off balance, applying unneeded pressure, or likely to lead to soreness later. Make sure it’s not too bright, too noisy, too warm or cold. Then from head to toe, take stock of your body state and relax every muscle. Let your shoulders sink, your hands open, neck loosen. Sink into the bed. Exhale and you should feel like a pile of noodles.

Then just listen to your own breathing. Don’t breathe deeply, just breathe comfortably. Listen to the sound. The goal is literally to bore yourself to sleep. If you catch yourself thinking, stop. Just go back to the breathing. Don’t count, manage, or time anything. Just relax and breathe, listening to the air moving.

Hopefully, the next step is to wake up.

While I am not one to fall asleep in minutes usually, I've had a few cases where I was extremely tired and fell asleep the moment I put my head on the pillow and also woke up instantly the next morning. What's interesting is that I did not feel rested at all but I also were not sleepy.

Wake up early and exercise at least 30 min. Makes me feel actually tired at the end of the day so it's easier to fall asleep. Exercising later on the day doesn't work because it amps me up.

I've always been this way, but every so often I still have trouble turning my thoughts off enough to get to sleep.

There's a technique I use on those occasions that helps a lot. Basically, just try to imagine a shape - it could be a circle or a sphere or a triangle or whatever - and just try to rotate it in your head. Pick a colour too. Try to keep it going. Any time you lose focus because another thought takes over, try to get the shape back.

Dissociation.

Easy, I wake up three hours later and toss and turn or give up and read.

Zzzquil

(This comment was sponsored by zzzquil "zzzquil, when you're too lazy to fix your own issues try drugs!")

As long as I'm not anxious about anything, I sleep well. I do all the usual advice. Maintain a consistent sleep schedule, including weekends, and try to hold to it as much as possible even during travel and vacation. General healthy diet and exercise. Turn off screens. Max Richter sleep soundtrack low in the background. The "alphabet game" or whatever, probably learned about it on here or reddit: pick any letter and then think of every word that starts with that letter. It keeps you brain occupied on something inconsequential so no other important thoughts take my attention. Melatonin when I do need to shift away from my normal schedule for some reason.

I suspect a genetic predisposition; my dad is like this and most of my siblings.

My real super power is my ability to sleep on planes. I'll be out cold by the time the plane leaves the runway.

And sometimes I'll get my brain knotted up over some dumb problem, worry about it and not sleep for two nights straight. Crash hard. Then be fine.

When I stopped doing things from bed, I was able to sleep a lot easier. If the bed equals sleep, the body gets it.

But I also only sleep when I'm sleepy, I never try to force myself to sleep early even if I have early morning responsibilities.

Alcohol.

CBTI is the answer to everyone’s inability to sleep. Cognitive behavioral therapy (Insomnia) it’s worth looking up and learning about, if you can’t get there alone it’s worth finding a CBTI therapist if sleep is that problematic

Many moons ago I'd struggle to fall asleep quickly, but now I can whenever I want. Even more effective if I think about a task on my todo list I'm dreading.

I don't want to say that it's due to the pandemic, but it definitely became a thing for me during the pandemic.

Side-effects: does not imply that I use this ability to establish a good sleep schedule. Zero productivity on trains and planes; first-class service is wasted due to being conked out.

I read for a bit until I get sleepy. Usually takes 30-45 minutes. Having a consistent bedtime helps a lot too. On the rare occasions I can't sleep I'll take a melatonin but that stuff makes me have nightmares.

Vitamin D deficiency

One year old child.

Oh hey, I just watched something that was full of good info about this! https://youtube.com/watch?v=-Lv7jmdqTUU

ADHD context, but most of it is universal. I hope there’s something useful in there for you!

I lay down, close my eyes, and then in my mind I imagine slowly pushing all sensation down to my feet starting from my head while I slow my breathing. I'm usually out before I even get to my knees.

drugs

The times I fall asleep quickest are days where I've been out in the sun. Doesn't matter if it's intense yard work, or relaxing on an inner tube, the sun takes it out of me and I don't even want to open my phone before bed.

Amitriptyline It has been a literal life saver. Struggling to fall asleep and fighting chronic pain for 15 years before someone recommended it. First couple months I was narcoleptic but after my body adjusted I have a regular sleep schedule for once in my life and can be active again instead of all my energy going to fight spinal-cerebral pain.

It doesn't work every time (I am very much not someone that can just switch off), but I have found "floor time" to help as a method of meditating. Initially I was just doing stretches of time for the sake of countering being slumped posture all day without a specific intention of being a sleep aid. Some of us randomly do it on the cold floor at work if physically stressed out, which is why I thought to try it at home in the dark.

Tend to either have some long form video play that I have watched before and find nice for sound, or put buds in and set like a 20~30min sleep timer for podcast episodes I like and marked to never delete in a favorites section of the app. Ended up also finding some buds (Soundcore Sleep A10 for anyone that wants to know) that can auto-stop playback if they detect sleep (guessing they use like a heart-rate sensor). So they can act as an additional stop if I fall asleep before the actual sleep timer (sadly I have misplaced them ATM). Which help silence my own thoughts, and anchor onto the audio (and thoughts get kept to the video/podcast). And use the timer to formerly end the "floor time" or to avoid losing my place.

Only other thing I try to allow myself to drift into thinking about is if I feel like I have tensed-up or periodic moving my head to each side for a few mins each to stretch my neck. I just stare into the back of my eyelids, but sometimes the darkness of the room (or into something covering my eyes) for times that staring into the back of my eyelids feels weirdly stressful in the same way a staring contest does when open (very annoying feeling).

I have a high level (in my understanding) of Aphantasia, which for people that haven't heard of it, is not being able to "see" imaginations like folks that talk about "imagine a ball of light" or other guided things. Not fully lacking complete ability to "see" things, but ranging from only the idea (nothing) to extremely quick flashes of mostly super low details. So I try to learn how to focus on keeping the flashes a little longer and "see" simple things or pull the image of the room as I would be seeing it from my spot on the floor if my eyes were open. Made some progress here and there, while still not being able to do it outside of these times. Which I think might be helping me start to nod-off into really light sleep where dreams are close to starting.

Which can slip into that weird sudden falling feeling people have sometimes before fully falling asleep. However even if that happens, I can use that as a stopping point for "floor time" and move into the bed and fall asleep soon after. As my mind/body are much closer to whatever state needed for going over the edge of sleep. If the "falling" thing doesn't happen, I might reach a slightly deeper sleep where I am dreaming but can either still hear the show/podcast in the dream or it is influencing the dream to some in the short time I nod-off.

you wont like this answer:
sometimes** start your day by wakeing up at 3am

For me, most importantly I lay in bed with my eyes closed those are the two big prerequisites to sleep. If you're getting out of bed or keeping your eyes open to use your phone or whatever, of course you're not gonna get to sleep.

From there, what I do doesn't matter much. I think about stuff, make up a story, just imagine a bunch of swirly lights and patterns, doesn't much matter. Keep your eyes closed and eventually sleep happens.

ASMR. Every night. I’m out in 30 minutes or less. Praise be to Lucy Harper of the YouTube channel Creative Calm. Her videos have been helping me (and I’m sure many others) sleep for over a decade

Idk it's like I just wake up the next day