No pharmaceutical aids preferably
Shitty answer: Benedryl. The next morning doesn’t go well.
Real answer: What you don’t do is lay in bed and try to sleep, your mind will just keep going. Do something low impact. Read a magazine or book, nothing that evokes a fear, anger, or excited response. I read social media feeds I have constructed to weed out the ragebait and doomer crap. Mostly tech stuff. I use a red light filter so the screen doesn’t keep me going.
weed
start day dreaming/meditation
if im restless i will go for a walk around the block.
glass of water/small snack
open the window
socks on/off
masturbate/get laid.
I also do most of these. Day dreaming is a hard no as its often why i can’t sleep. Wiill walk around inside of my house instead of the block. And never wear socks to bed. Could see random things like that helping for other people though.
I start by meditating, clearing all thought, and concentrating on how it feels to breathe. I definitely wouldn’t stay in bed if its been more than 15-20 mins. Clear sign to me something needs to change for some amount of time. The frustration would start to grow where it would become its own issue I’d have to overcome.
I cast a draining/depressant spell on My mind to reduce cognitive activity.
Learning to chill/meditate is quite helpful, but can take a long time.
I’ve found the ‘military sleep method’ to be very helpful as well. The version I found years ago, had you tense up each body area before relaxing it, but the links I found now mentioned none of that.
Having something to listen to is key for me. It gives a racing ADHD mind something to focus on so that I kinda fall asleep without noticing.
I have a cheap random brand of sleep mask that has built in bluetooth headphones, and it is great.
Oh man, I use the hell out of those things. They’re wonderful
Being old and tired. Sorry I had to, but it’s really true.
But for some mroe helpful input I would always recommend background noise. Water, wind, thunder, trees, rain etc. Can really recommend mynoise as web or app paid with all content (worth it!).
Imagine your body slowly floating up to the ceiling. Or conversely, sinking down through the mattress.
The sinking thing works for me!
I did that as a kid, worked for me too.
Think about the fact that you have to wake up later and how much you’ll want to stay in bed
Then, remember where you are right now, and start to realize how good it feels to be in bed
No responsibilities, no distractions, no obligations, just the rest you’ve been waiting for. All time is frozen, nothing matters until tomorrow
Baseball
Audiobooks… Not the good ones like DCC though. My recommendation is something interesting but with a boring (and maybe monotone) narrator. Silmarillion comes to mind. It works for me because it is not interesting enough to hold my ADHD brain’s attention but not enough to actively fight to be awake to keep listening. I’ve been doing this for a while (10+ years), every now and then it misfires and you can’t sleep because the book is too good and your brain won’t disengage.
What I find really, really, helps is jumping on the bed until you hit your head on the ceiling and just pass the fuck out wherever you land.
“sleep”
“falling”
I see all the usual advice was already given so I’ll skip right to the weird things that work for me: I lie on my belly with my face resting on my palm so that the base of the thumb gently presses on one of the eyes (right hand on the left side of the face or vice versa). The pressure makes me sleepy almost immediately.
At the same time I think about some detailed but impractical project, anything I’d like to make but cannot immediately start. I think about the tiniest details until I fell tired. The goal is not to try to fall asleep and not to think of anything that would require action/attention, and also not to dwell on anything unpleasant. I usually fall asleep under 5 minutes.
I think about some detailed but impractical project
This is my thing too yeah. Even if I don’t fall asleep immediately, it keeps my mind occupied on something pleasant for long enough that eventually I’ll slip away
Think of very nice things. Utopia, special interests stuff like that
Magnesium helps me go to sleep and relaxes me. No side effects, won’t keep you asleep. Like if I fall asleep at 10, I very well could wake up at 12 and struggle to fall back to sleep but it at least puts me to sleep which is tough for me
