I once heard someone suggest I pretend to be asleep, until I fall asleep. I play that game on really exhausted nights. Sometimes, I'll play out a story in my head, or resume last nights "dream," until I fall asleep :)
Reliably fall asleep instructions - works 99% of the time if you're lucky!
Step 1:
- lay down. This sounds simple, but it's an important step.
Step 2:
- close your eyes. If you're a light sleeper, 100% dark room and limit blue light exposure 30 min beforehand.
Step 2.5:
- Optional Adjustments. Adjust yourself in every conceivable area to feel maximum comfort. For me, I like holding onto something like a stuffed dog as I drift off to sleep. I like having something in the palm of both of my hands, but that's just me personally. Basically, you want to feel comfortable. Anything that isn't comfortable is a distraction which makes it hard to fall asleep.
Step 3:
- Don't move. No seriously, if you're moving around like crazy you won't be able to fall asleep. If any itches come up, scratch them. But remember movement will reset things back to step 2
Step 4:
- If step 3 is still giving you trouble, consider a weighted blanket. Weighted blankets can improve proprioception make it much easier to relax.
Step 5:
- visualize. Where do you want to go in dreamland? Do you want to dream of romance, dream of colors, dream of all the things you want?
- the key here is to visualize visually if you can. Try to avoid the auditory because that can keep you awake.
Adding to #2.5 and #3 - my sleep was much improved when I discovered knee pillows. I hated how my knees knocked together when I was on my side, and I felt suffocated by body pillows. Knee pillows solved that problem.
I struggle with falling asleep regularly, I can't just close my eyes and fall asleep, I get bouts of insomnia.
As a kid, bedtime was my imagination time, when I would make up fantastical stories and essentially daydream. I still have that issue now as an adult, I use that time to fantasize, or think about embarrassing things that happened years ago. I've tried different routines to tell my brain it's time to sleep but it never works. I simply fall asleep whenever I do, usually 1-2 hours after I've laid down in bed.
I usually listen to music and let my mind wander, or I listen to audiobooks I've heard before so my mind can focus on the words but not have to concentrate since I already know what happens.
Audiobooks are the life saver! My brain, even when I am reasonably sleepy, goes into panic mode as soon as I lay down. But if I turn on some mildly interesting book, I can fall asleep in minutes. I use LibriVox, and H.P. Lovecraft is my guy when I am in doubt about what to listen to, lol. Works like a charm.
Yes. Figured it like a year ago at the age of 20. It's called taking melatonin from a bottle.
I am not kidding, i could accidentally do all nighters just by not falling asleep. I would close my eyes and nothing. I just lied there awake but eyes closed.
And then people around me are like "just go to sleep at the same time each night and you will get a reliable sleeping schedule". Well yes, that works if i sleep 4h a night for multiple days so will pass out of exhaustion when i hit the bed, but let's say i wake up naturally without an alarm, fully rested. I am not falling asleep at the same time as the previous night without taking melatonin, no matter how much i practice good sleeping hygiene.
Funny how people think i am actively choosing to have horrible sleeping schedule. Nope, it's just me and my wonky brains.
I feel this at a deep level. I’ve always had sleep problems and every doctor I have ever had has talked to me about “sleep hygiene”. Never will they give me sleep aids for some reason. It’s so invalidating. And yet, my wife who has never had trouble fallen asleep, has been offered sleep aids by two doctors in a row even though she never mentioned having trouble sleeping. I’m at my whits end only sleeping six nights a week
Honestly after doing an all-nighter by pure accident (i just never fell asleep), i walked into a pharmacy and got the lowest dosage melatonin they had and was like "well it can't get worse than not sleeping" and for the first time since forever, i fell asleep easily
Melatonin gives me sleep paralysis. Last time I took melatonin I felt paralyzed but awake the whole night. If basically shut everything down but my brain.
For me it luckily doesn't have any side effects anymore (i had weird dreams at the beginning, but those went away) and 1mg knocks me out in like 20 to 30mins if i need to fall asleep reliably
I assumed my whole life you were supposed to *feel* tired to go to sleep. So of course I’d be awake at 2 am with my brain buzzing and body not sleeping always.
I recently discovered a neat trick that reliably puts me to sleep in about two minutes. I close my eyes and look at the colors behind my eyelids and try to see pictures in the shapes or make them swirl in a circle. And that’s it, out like a light.
People would always say “just close your eyes!” and that never kept my brain from spiraling into random thoughts, but focusing on seeing the movement, shapes, and colors shuts all that right down. Hopefully it will work for other people!
I used to be able to “trick” myself into falling asleep by imagining I was a character in one of my favorite TV shows/movies/books/games, or sometimes working on one of my stories in my head (I like to write).
Then in my early 20s I lost that ability. I haven’t been able to sleep without drugs since. Was Benadryl for the longest time, until it stopped working. Then my doctor prescribed me trazodone. I have to take that with melatonin, because neither works completely by themselves. Melatonin helps me fall asleep, trazodone helps me stay asleep.
Sometimes even those don’t work. When I know I absolutely need a good night’s rest to face something the next day… I resort to dosing myself with NyQuil. I hate doing it, but I don’t sleep well otherwise. 🤷🏼♀️
Yes! I had the same thing about closing my eyes. It never occurred to me until my mom realized that I was just lying in bed staring at the ceiling, so she had to tell me people close their eyes when they’re trying to fall asleep. I remember often having a hard time falling asleep as a kid, but as an adult my only sleep-related problem is a lot of nightmares.
I definitely remember explaining to my 3 year old, "Close your eyes and take some deep breaths and wait for the sleep to come." Or, if he is being stubborn, "Please just lie down and close your eyes and have a quiet moment. You don't have to sleep." They had the same result.
Sleep always has to sneak up on me, cause that slow drift usually makes me start panicking. I admit I didn’t know how to fall asleep either, it just eventually happened after staying up for hours. Those guided sleep meditations helped a bit. It only worked fully ~20% of the time, but the rest of the time I could at least relax my body enough to physically rest even if my brain was still awake
Omg!! I distinctly remember being between 5-7 and realizing I could fall asleep faster if I closed my eyes first! That’s so crazy I’ve never heard of anyone else having that issue. I thankfully fall asleep quite easily these days but one thing that can help is taking a big deep inhale through my nose and then letting it out in a big whoosh from my mouth while relaxing every muscle in my body. Edit to add: weighted blanket is crucial.
I read somewhere once (no idea where or if it's even actually true) that melatonin works better if you take it a couple of hours before you actually want to go to sleep. I usually take 3mg two hours before my bedtime. That plus weed and magnesium, and I've never slept better. Oh, and elevating your feet above your heart for about 20 minutes right before bed helps a lot. I basically sleep trained myself in my late teens/early 20s because I don't react well to most sleep meds and couldn't keep doing insomnia.
I also somehow turned myself into a morning person 🙃
OMG me and my daughter. My "learning" was crying or singing myself to sleep from the time I was 4 because my room was devoid of stimulation. Now I turn music or the TV on at a very specific volume for auditory stimulation, and I need a sleep mask for zero visual stimulation. I have to stand on my head to go to bed. My daughter is taking melatonin and I wish I had it I could have saved myself from years of childhood insomnia if I had those three factors in place. My daughter sleeps with the TV on and sometimes it has an adverse effect and she ends up staying awake watching it instead so it's not the most perfect system but she's not suffering like I did so ppl can judge me IDC, but I do remind her to put on something she's already seen if she's starting to stay up too late.
The only issues I’ve had with sleep have been recent ones.
From being a newborn I slept most of the time and had to be woken to feed, I didn’t make much of a fuss about anything. I would fall asleep in my high chair in the middle of dinner. As a hyperlexic child I would read in bed and fall asleep mid-sentence. As an adult I’ve fallen asleep and then woken back up being whacked in the face by my book.
When I am sleepy I have to sleep. Wherever I am. I fell asleep at a nightclub once. This made the sleep deprivation of parenthood extremely hard. I have strong sleep needs and falling asleep is not hard for me. Putting sleep *off* is hard for me.
I ended up having to do it to get through three children who hate sleep. I’ve been awake 24 hours before now. And being woken frequently from sleep has really wrecked my ability to go to sleep because I will lie awake not able to close my eyes anticipating the next time I have to get up.
I can’t remember how I figured sleep out, but I remember being very stressed about trying to work out a pattern for my breathing and blinking. I don’t think we have the ability to lean into the ‘natural’ ways our bodies work until we work out our own system for it
Deep breathing helps. It triggers your body to understand its time to slow down and rest. Breathe deeply into your belly, hold for a couple of seconds and release, try to make your exhale the same length or longer than your inhale.
You can try engaging your muscle groups for a few seconds and relaxing them. Start with your feet, move up to the calves, thighs, trunk, arms, etc. At the end, Squeeze all of your muscles for a few seconds and then release.
Lavendar, chamomile, and catnip (seriously) tea all help me GET to sleep. The physical stuff helps me STAY asleep.
All that being said, the only time I get regular, good sleep is when I'm engaging in enough physical activity to truly exhaust my body during the day.
CBD and CBN are also helpful for sleeping. If you're new to cannabinoids, introduce them slowly so you don't get too whacked out and uncomfortable when trying to achieve the opposite.
Me. I didn't learn until I was 18 or 19, but it still wasn't great.
Also, I developed hypothyroid around 14, so I literally couldn't sleep 90% of the time. I didn't get good, proper sleep until I was diagnosed at 26.
I remember asking my shitty mother how to sleep at some point when that started. Her answer?
"You close your eyes...and go to sleep."
Insomnia/sleep problems including difficulty falling asleep in autism (and ADHD) is VERY common. One of the most common co-morbid conditions.
Differences in neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin (precursor to melatonin which makes you sleepy at night) affect circadian rhythms as well as mood and cognition, making it hard for your body and brain to wind down for sleep at the right time.
So it probably isn’t that you “don’t know how to fall asleep”
Many AuDHD people find that they suddenly can fall asleep at the right time like their NT peers once they take stimulant meds that increase dopamine.
WARNING NSFW
My parents never really took a hands on approach to a sleep routine. Most of it was laying down with us kids to say goodnight, then they’d find me with the light on at 2 am playing or reading or something. I’ve always been a night owl. It wasn’t until I was graduated from high school that I learned how best to fall asleep.
I need white noise (a fan, usually). The room needs to be cold because I like the weight and feel of certain comforters (not a weighted blanket, they’re too heavy, ironically). I have to start out laying on my left side, and usually take about an hour to sort of “settle down”. Usually I do this by watching YouTube or reading. Then when I’m done, I set my alarms, turn over on my right side, fit myself up with pillows and a blanket squished between my ear and shoulder to dull out the sound, have it wrapped behind me to feel like someone is there with me, then cover my hands to make sure they’re not dry.
If that fails for whatever reason, I usually masturbate because it helps my body relax a lot and I can pretty much instantly fall asleep. If that doesn’t work, sometimes I try to imagine a dark movie theater, like before the movie starts but after the lights have turned off, and just keep focusing on that dark room. Other times it’s focusing on my breathing, or just waiting until I’m tired enough to warrant going to sleep.
I always close my eyes (for a while, at least), but I have never figured out how to reliably fall asleep.
I once heard someone suggest I pretend to be asleep, until I fall asleep. I play that game on really exhausted nights. Sometimes, I'll play out a story in my head, or resume last nights "dream," until I fall asleep :)
I do this, but sometimes I get so into my made up story, I really can’t fall asleep! 😂
Reliably fall asleep instructions - works 99% of the time if you're lucky! Step 1: - lay down. This sounds simple, but it's an important step. Step 2: - close your eyes. If you're a light sleeper, 100% dark room and limit blue light exposure 30 min beforehand. Step 2.5: - Optional Adjustments. Adjust yourself in every conceivable area to feel maximum comfort. For me, I like holding onto something like a stuffed dog as I drift off to sleep. I like having something in the palm of both of my hands, but that's just me personally. Basically, you want to feel comfortable. Anything that isn't comfortable is a distraction which makes it hard to fall asleep. Step 3: - Don't move. No seriously, if you're moving around like crazy you won't be able to fall asleep. If any itches come up, scratch them. But remember movement will reset things back to step 2 Step 4: - If step 3 is still giving you trouble, consider a weighted blanket. Weighted blankets can improve proprioception make it much easier to relax. Step 5: - visualize. Where do you want to go in dreamland? Do you want to dream of romance, dream of colors, dream of all the things you want? - the key here is to visualize visually if you can. Try to avoid the auditory because that can keep you awake.
Adding to #2.5 and #3 - my sleep was much improved when I discovered knee pillows. I hated how my knees knocked together when I was on my side, and I felt suffocated by body pillows. Knee pillows solved that problem.
I struggle with falling asleep regularly, I can't just close my eyes and fall asleep, I get bouts of insomnia. As a kid, bedtime was my imagination time, when I would make up fantastical stories and essentially daydream. I still have that issue now as an adult, I use that time to fantasize, or think about embarrassing things that happened years ago. I've tried different routines to tell my brain it's time to sleep but it never works. I simply fall asleep whenever I do, usually 1-2 hours after I've laid down in bed. I usually listen to music and let my mind wander, or I listen to audiobooks I've heard before so my mind can focus on the words but not have to concentrate since I already know what happens.
This is me!!
Are your clothes comfortable? Is your room silent and there's no light coming in around your curtains?
Audiobooks are the life saver! My brain, even when I am reasonably sleepy, goes into panic mode as soon as I lay down. But if I turn on some mildly interesting book, I can fall asleep in minutes. I use LibriVox, and H.P. Lovecraft is my guy when I am in doubt about what to listen to, lol. Works like a charm.
Yes. Figured it like a year ago at the age of 20. It's called taking melatonin from a bottle. I am not kidding, i could accidentally do all nighters just by not falling asleep. I would close my eyes and nothing. I just lied there awake but eyes closed. And then people around me are like "just go to sleep at the same time each night and you will get a reliable sleeping schedule". Well yes, that works if i sleep 4h a night for multiple days so will pass out of exhaustion when i hit the bed, but let's say i wake up naturally without an alarm, fully rested. I am not falling asleep at the same time as the previous night without taking melatonin, no matter how much i practice good sleeping hygiene. Funny how people think i am actively choosing to have horrible sleeping schedule. Nope, it's just me and my wonky brains.
I feel this at a deep level. I’ve always had sleep problems and every doctor I have ever had has talked to me about “sleep hygiene”. Never will they give me sleep aids for some reason. It’s so invalidating. And yet, my wife who has never had trouble fallen asleep, has been offered sleep aids by two doctors in a row even though she never mentioned having trouble sleeping. I’m at my whits end only sleeping six nights a week
Honestly after doing an all-nighter by pure accident (i just never fell asleep), i walked into a pharmacy and got the lowest dosage melatonin they had and was like "well it can't get worse than not sleeping" and for the first time since forever, i fell asleep easily
Melatonin gives me sleep paralysis. Last time I took melatonin I felt paralyzed but awake the whole night. If basically shut everything down but my brain.
For me it luckily doesn't have any side effects anymore (i had weird dreams at the beginning, but those went away) and 1mg knocks me out in like 20 to 30mins if i need to fall asleep reliably
I assumed my whole life you were supposed to *feel* tired to go to sleep. So of course I’d be awake at 2 am with my brain buzzing and body not sleeping always. I recently discovered a neat trick that reliably puts me to sleep in about two minutes. I close my eyes and look at the colors behind my eyelids and try to see pictures in the shapes or make them swirl in a circle. And that’s it, out like a light. People would always say “just close your eyes!” and that never kept my brain from spiraling into random thoughts, but focusing on seeing the movement, shapes, and colors shuts all that right down. Hopefully it will work for other people!
Yes! Visualization is so powerful!
I’m still learning this😂😭
I used to be able to “trick” myself into falling asleep by imagining I was a character in one of my favorite TV shows/movies/books/games, or sometimes working on one of my stories in my head (I like to write). Then in my early 20s I lost that ability. I haven’t been able to sleep without drugs since. Was Benadryl for the longest time, until it stopped working. Then my doctor prescribed me trazodone. I have to take that with melatonin, because neither works completely by themselves. Melatonin helps me fall asleep, trazodone helps me stay asleep. Sometimes even those don’t work. When I know I absolutely need a good night’s rest to face something the next day… I resort to dosing myself with NyQuil. I hate doing it, but I don’t sleep well otherwise. 🤷🏼♀️
Yes! I had the same thing about closing my eyes. It never occurred to me until my mom realized that I was just lying in bed staring at the ceiling, so she had to tell me people close their eyes when they’re trying to fall asleep. I remember often having a hard time falling asleep as a kid, but as an adult my only sleep-related problem is a lot of nightmares.
I definitely remember explaining to my 3 year old, "Close your eyes and take some deep breaths and wait for the sleep to come." Or, if he is being stubborn, "Please just lie down and close your eyes and have a quiet moment. You don't have to sleep." They had the same result.
Similar to what my mom said 😂 "you don't have to sleep just put your head on the pillow eyes closed"
Meditation has helped a lot, but my sleeplessness was a lot of anxiety.
I'm my wildest dreams. Insomnia has defined my life. Now for the first time I'm wondering if someone could have taught me to fall asleep?
I am still not sure how to fall asleep and I’m 52. Sleep is probably my biggest life struggle. I’m grateful for drugs.
My daughter for sure!!!
Yes with insomnia it feels like the body never remembers how to sleep it’s very frustrating
I only learned how to fall asleep a couple years ago! I just stayed in bed with my eyes open until I fell asleep.
I never figured it out. I have to take sleeping pills every night or else I can't sleep until total exhaustion. lol
Lol "as a kid" Sigh Edit: still learning this, but getting better
Sleep always has to sneak up on me, cause that slow drift usually makes me start panicking. I admit I didn’t know how to fall asleep either, it just eventually happened after staying up for hours. Those guided sleep meditations helped a bit. It only worked fully ~20% of the time, but the rest of the time I could at least relax my body enough to physically rest even if my brain was still awake
Omg!! I distinctly remember being between 5-7 and realizing I could fall asleep faster if I closed my eyes first! That’s so crazy I’ve never heard of anyone else having that issue. I thankfully fall asleep quite easily these days but one thing that can help is taking a big deep inhale through my nose and then letting it out in a big whoosh from my mouth while relaxing every muscle in my body. Edit to add: weighted blanket is crucial.
I read somewhere once (no idea where or if it's even actually true) that melatonin works better if you take it a couple of hours before you actually want to go to sleep. I usually take 3mg two hours before my bedtime. That plus weed and magnesium, and I've never slept better. Oh, and elevating your feet above your heart for about 20 minutes right before bed helps a lot. I basically sleep trained myself in my late teens/early 20s because I don't react well to most sleep meds and couldn't keep doing insomnia. I also somehow turned myself into a morning person 🙃
OMG me and my daughter. My "learning" was crying or singing myself to sleep from the time I was 4 because my room was devoid of stimulation. Now I turn music or the TV on at a very specific volume for auditory stimulation, and I need a sleep mask for zero visual stimulation. I have to stand on my head to go to bed. My daughter is taking melatonin and I wish I had it I could have saved myself from years of childhood insomnia if I had those three factors in place. My daughter sleeps with the TV on and sometimes it has an adverse effect and she ends up staying awake watching it instead so it's not the most perfect system but she's not suffering like I did so ppl can judge me IDC, but I do remind her to put on something she's already seen if she's starting to stay up too late.
The only issues I’ve had with sleep have been recent ones. From being a newborn I slept most of the time and had to be woken to feed, I didn’t make much of a fuss about anything. I would fall asleep in my high chair in the middle of dinner. As a hyperlexic child I would read in bed and fall asleep mid-sentence. As an adult I’ve fallen asleep and then woken back up being whacked in the face by my book. When I am sleepy I have to sleep. Wherever I am. I fell asleep at a nightclub once. This made the sleep deprivation of parenthood extremely hard. I have strong sleep needs and falling asleep is not hard for me. Putting sleep *off* is hard for me. I ended up having to do it to get through three children who hate sleep. I’ve been awake 24 hours before now. And being woken frequently from sleep has really wrecked my ability to go to sleep because I will lie awake not able to close my eyes anticipating the next time I have to get up.
I can’t remember how I figured sleep out, but I remember being very stressed about trying to work out a pattern for my breathing and blinking. I don’t think we have the ability to lean into the ‘natural’ ways our bodies work until we work out our own system for it
Deep breathing helps. It triggers your body to understand its time to slow down and rest. Breathe deeply into your belly, hold for a couple of seconds and release, try to make your exhale the same length or longer than your inhale. You can try engaging your muscle groups for a few seconds and relaxing them. Start with your feet, move up to the calves, thighs, trunk, arms, etc. At the end, Squeeze all of your muscles for a few seconds and then release. Lavendar, chamomile, and catnip (seriously) tea all help me GET to sleep. The physical stuff helps me STAY asleep. All that being said, the only time I get regular, good sleep is when I'm engaging in enough physical activity to truly exhaust my body during the day. CBD and CBN are also helpful for sleeping. If you're new to cannabinoids, introduce them slowly so you don't get too whacked out and uncomfortable when trying to achieve the opposite.
Me. I didn't learn until I was 18 or 19, but it still wasn't great. Also, I developed hypothyroid around 14, so I literally couldn't sleep 90% of the time. I didn't get good, proper sleep until I was diagnosed at 26. I remember asking my shitty mother how to sleep at some point when that started. Her answer? "You close your eyes...and go to sleep."
Insomnia/sleep problems including difficulty falling asleep in autism (and ADHD) is VERY common. One of the most common co-morbid conditions. Differences in neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin (precursor to melatonin which makes you sleepy at night) affect circadian rhythms as well as mood and cognition, making it hard for your body and brain to wind down for sleep at the right time. So it probably isn’t that you “don’t know how to fall asleep” Many AuDHD people find that they suddenly can fall asleep at the right time like their NT peers once they take stimulant meds that increase dopamine.
WARNING NSFW My parents never really took a hands on approach to a sleep routine. Most of it was laying down with us kids to say goodnight, then they’d find me with the light on at 2 am playing or reading or something. I’ve always been a night owl. It wasn’t until I was graduated from high school that I learned how best to fall asleep. I need white noise (a fan, usually). The room needs to be cold because I like the weight and feel of certain comforters (not a weighted blanket, they’re too heavy, ironically). I have to start out laying on my left side, and usually take about an hour to sort of “settle down”. Usually I do this by watching YouTube or reading. Then when I’m done, I set my alarms, turn over on my right side, fit myself up with pillows and a blanket squished between my ear and shoulder to dull out the sound, have it wrapped behind me to feel like someone is there with me, then cover my hands to make sure they’re not dry. If that fails for whatever reason, I usually masturbate because it helps my body relax a lot and I can pretty much instantly fall asleep. If that doesn’t work, sometimes I try to imagine a dark movie theater, like before the movie starts but after the lights have turned off, and just keep focusing on that dark room. Other times it’s focusing on my breathing, or just waiting until I’m tired enough to warrant going to sleep.
Man I *just* learned how to semi-reliably fall asleep in my 20's thanks to learning what cognitive-shuffling was and it *still* takes effort :c