From the article: How to Fall Asleep Faster
Do you have any special bedtime routines or tips that make it easier for you to fall asleep each night? Or have you received some bad advice about falling asleep that you'd like to share? Help other Senior Living readers with your tips about how to fall asleep faster. Share Your Sleep Tips
Unfocus
- For years I have followed all the tips with little success, but I have recently found a method that seems to help; maybe it will help others like me. The article says to focus your mind, but for me, that just keeps me awake: I *unfocus*. Instead of taking things that come to mind and consciously moving them to a candle flame or something, I make my mind "fuzzy" and keep it up by imagining my thoughts as on a path, but keep my mind swinging back and forth past that path. When I think of something, that's okay, I just go right past it. The goal is to end up thinking about the nonsensical stuff that I've noticed is where my brain goes right before it falls asleep... dreamlike, crazy stuff is a *good* sign. It's very hard to describe, but maybe if you can figure out (without stressing about it) how *your* brain acts right before falling asleep, you can figure out what works for you, too.
- —Guest Parmeisan
Sun goes down, lights go out
- Falling asleep isn't the problem, staying awake is. When the sun goes down, my lights want to go out too. I think I must be an evolutionary throwback.
- —Guest Mae
The marvels of technology
- It's an old trick that's been around for a while, but with the iPhone falling asleep to soothing sounds has become unbelievably easy. There's an application with a host of sounds to pick from...[Sharon's note: If you don't have an iPhone, check your library or music retailer for tapes or CDs made especially to help you sleep.]
- —Guest Linda
Sleep
- Think about something fun or a story that you read and make a sequel to it. Make it fun. Maybe you can actually make a book out of it. And last thing, you could do what ever you want. You could even break the rules of the story, because remember that your main goal is really to sleep good and wake up good. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Early to sleep early to rise makes a man wealthy and wise."
- —Guest suzieq
Reading
- Reading is a good habit. It help me much to fall asleep. Whenever I get disappointed by some problems I take my book out of my bag and start to read it. I always keep my book with me whether I am in home or outside. It keeps my mind free from all kind of tensions so I don't have any kind of sleeping problem. I read your tips about getting enough sleep. I got much knowledge through your article. It helped me to enhance my knowledge. Thank you.
- —Guest vineeta
I fall asleep by.....
- I use a little trick I got off the Internet: you breath in with one nostril,then breath out the other,breath in with the same one and breath out the other and so on, it always works and I highly recomend it to other people with this problem.
- —Guest sleepman
Yawning toward sleep
- The hard part is finding some way to turn off my busy mind and let go of the day so that I can make room for sleep. I've never had much luck with counting backwards or any of those other mental tricks that are supposed to bring on sleep. Melatonin sometimes helps, but reading seems to work best. Focusing on a book seems to shut out other thoughts so that eventually I get drowsy enough to sleep.
- —Guest Mr. Sandman
What I do to fall asleep
- I find a really boring paperback and keep it in my nightstand. On nights when I can't fall asleep, I bring out the book. At first I had to read a few chapters, but now I only read a few paragraphs before I'm off to dreamland.
- —Guest suzieq
