The age old question: how to fall asleep when you can’t

When you can’t sleep, it sucks.

I used to lay in bed for hours tossing and turning thinking what should I do if I can’t sleep?

Just lay here all night?

The reason you can’t turn your brain off and your nervous system is wired, is because you have a broken circadian rhythm.

You’ve been violating all of Nature’s laws all day, every day for decades.

You need to reset your circadian rhythm if you want to fall asleep easily and stay asleep without waking up in the middle of the night.

I used to have this exact problem, but I had no idea what caused it, until now.

Now that I understand (and practice…I’m almost obsessive about it) this information I’ve healed my mitochondrial health and my circadian rhythm is tightly bound to Nature and the environment I’m living in.

So to learn how to fall asleep when you can’t is an issue you can fix but it’s going to take a little time and effort.

This article about falling asleep is going to focus on some things you can do “in the moment” to help you fall asleep when you don’t feel like you can.

Reverse Psychology

Here’s one way to fall asleep when you can’t which is using reverse psychology. Embrace the insomnia. In fact, be the best insomniac that has ever existed. Break the world record of sleep deprivation.

Instead of fighting your  alertness, embrace it. Go into it. Love it. Be with it.

Tell yourself that if you stay up all night, you’re going to win 10 million dollars.

Make it a game.

But make the game rigged against you.

You set the rules right?

In order to win the 10 million dollars, not only do you have to stay awake all night but you also have to do a series of breathing exercises as well as mental exercises perfectly.

It’s like telling a kid they can have ice cream but they need pick of their toys first and put them back exactly where you put them.

You’re not using reverse psychology by generally saying, “if I can stay up all night I’m going to win 10 million dollars“.

You’re saying yes I can win 10 million but I have to jump through all these hoops first and play this game following the rules, which I’ll explore a little below.

Turn Off All Lights

If you have a night light on (even if it’s a red night light) turn it off. If you’re able to use blackout curtains, make sure your entire room is 100% dark. If you have alarm clocks near you (make sure their red and battery powered not plugged in) turn them off. If you have any indicator lights on, either turn those devices off or at least cover them up with Junk Light Dots.

Your bedroom should be 100% dark.

The reason is because it only takes a few photons of light to suppress melatonin from your pineal gland and mitochondria. Melatonin isn’t’ a sleep hormone but a circadian rhythm hormone that induces sleep naturally.

This is why I don’t recommend taking melatonin if you have lights on in your house, unless they’re circadian bulbs.

Take These Supplements

If you have a high quality melatonin supplement I would encourage you to take it. I take a little bit of melatonin right when the sun sets and then I take more an hour or so before bed. I never take it, if I’m somewhere where there’s LED or fluorescent bulbs on. This would create a circadian mismatch and it would not be good for your biological rhythms.

The other sleep supplement I take is magnesium glycinate. When you take magnesium and melatonin together there’s a synergy that happens that seems to enhance the effectiveness of both of them individually.

I could list some Chinese herbs for anxiety and sleep or even homeopathic medicines for insomnia but I want to keep this article on how to fall asleep when you can’t as simple as possible.

If you’re up at midnight or 1am and cannot fall asleep, consider taking a couple supplements if you have them on hand. If you don’t, I would highly consider investing in some sleep supplements that can help you.

Just note, sleep supplements don’t fix your sleep or cure the underlying cause, that’s something that’ll have to change based on how you live, where you live & what your daily habits are.

Mental Games

Getting back to my reverse psychology idea above, mental games play a huge role in whether or not I’m going to pay myself 10 million dollars. Here’s the mental games I play to keep my mind off of stressful thoughts.

It’s almost as if my mind is a little baby and if left to its own devices, it would just tear apart the kitchen, knocking everything down and breaking them. I need to give my mind a task to focus on otherwise it’s going to drift off and think one stressful thought like…”We don’t have enough money to pay the bills, this is getting really scary.” or “I wonder if that lump is anything to be worried about? What if it is?”

Or I love the random thoughts about fights or arguments you got in with people that day?

You could go from thinking about puppies to having one stressful thought.

Then that thought leads to do all the “what ifs” and you’re cooked. You’re never falling back asleep.

So you need to treat your mind like that baby. Give it a hyper focused task to not deviate from.

So going back to my reverse psychology example, if you stay up all night and complete these tasks below, then you’ll get the 10 million dollars.

Mental Game #1

This one is simple and it’s #1 for a reason. You have to get through this to even start mental game #2. It’s counting to 5,000. The trick though is that you can’t remember you’re in the 300s if you’re on 345 for example. You can’t just mentally say “forty five” knowing you’re in the 300s.

You have to say “three hundred and forty five”.

No shortcuts. You have to say all the words.

If you made it to 5,000 here’s the next mental game…

Mental Game #2

Come up with names of mammals for each letter of the alphabet. So it looks like this…

• A – aardvark
• B – Buck
• C – Cheetah
• etc

Once you do that game, count to 5,000 again.

Then do the same game but this time do it for city names like so…

• Aspen
• Beirut
• Compton
• etc

Then count to 5,000 again

This time do the same game but with boy names like so…

• Alexander
• Bobby
• Clyde
• etc

Then count to 5,000 again.

This time do the same game with girl names…..

You get the idea.

This is how to fall asleep when you can’t!

Breathing Techniques For Sleep

I personally like the Box breathing technique for sleep when it comes to getting myself really tired.\. It works best for me and it’s easy because just like a box it has 4 series to them which are all 4 seconds long.

Here’s how it goes…

1. Inhale for 4 seconds
2. Hold that breath for 4 seconds
3. Exhale for 4 seconds
4. Then hold with no air in your lungs for 4 seconds
5. Repeat that process for 7 to 8 cycles

I like to do this after each mental game. Here’s how it looks…

1. Count to 5,000
2. Mental game
3. Box breathing technique for sleep
4. Count to 5,000
5. Next mental game

Basically in between each mental game, I’m counting to 5,000 and then doing a breathing exercise, then on to the next mental game.

Works like a charm, when I used to be unable to fall asleep.

Conclusion

If you need to fall asleep and you can’t, I would highly suggest looking at this as an opportunity to grow and change you life. Your health is messed up and so is your circadian rhythm.

Most likely you’re living an indoor lifestyle, you’re on prescription medications, perhaps you’re overweight and never get outside much. You’re not watching the sunrise or blocking blue light and you’re most likely depressed and working a job you don’t like.

To add insult to injury maybe you’re in a relationship you don’t like either.

Look at insomnia and your inability to fall asleep and stay asleep as an opportunity to completely change your health and your life.

I’ve been able to do it because I had all these same problems.

This is why I’m putting all of these articles out there in order to help you.

Questions:

• What do you do, when you can’t sleep?
• Do you lay in bed?
• Do you get out of bed?
• Or do you look at your  phone?

Comment below.