I have always had problems falling asleep. My mind is very active and I find it difficult to stop thinking. I could spend 1-2+ hours before I would fall asleep.
A long time ago I tried meditation using the 8-minute meditation book that was recommended by many.
I didn't have any luck with it and gave up after a short while. The book talks about different ways to meditate, the one I chose to do was the breathing technique. You think about your breathing and spend 8-minutes with a clear mind.
If you find yourself thinking about something, immediately go back to thinking about your breathing. The trick is to think about your breathing, but not to focus on it or change it. It's just a center point for when you get distracted.
It didn't work for me, but it gave me an idea. An idea that changed my life. I went from taking 1-2 hours to fall asleep to be able to sleep in 5-10 minutes. I still have days (like last night) that I have a difficult time sleeping, these nights are typically around 30 minutes maybe 45 minutes, nowhere near 2+ hours. They also don't have very frequently (maybe once every 2-3 months).
White Wall Technique by @themarkymark
This technique is very simple, when you are ready to fall asleep you think of a white wall.
That's it!
You are not freaking serious? Are you???
Ok, well there is a little more to it.
There are a few things I found work best, this white wall should be nondescript. No particular detail, and virtually out of focus. You want to shut off your thinking and imagination portions of the brain. To help this, I find thinking of this wall is far in the distance. The goal is to avoid focusing on any specific detail about the wall and just something to eliminate more complicated thought processes.
As someone who has wasted hours of his life sitting in bed thinking when I should be sleeping, this has saved a lot of my sanity and allowed me to sleep when I want to sleep.
I probably have been doing this at least ten years, and it has had a huge impact on my life.
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Lovely I liked this
Sleep difficulty is due to the complexity and speed of our lives
The best solution is to stay away from routine
Thanks for sharing.
There is another hack on how to calm the Mind.
Count from 1-10 and then back from 10-1.
This is difficult enough for your mind to stop thinking about other "problems", that are on your mind and needs to think about right now, and prevents from going to sleep. At the same time it is boring enough to get to sleep after some counts.
HEY HEY HEY!
I have a few suggestions for this matter if you mind. Meditation is always the great place to start. Breathing is life, breathing is everything. It will silence your mind.
But I have a suggestion for you. For me to fall asleep needs about 20 seconds. Doing so, you need to balance yourself. About anxious mind, read the book called "present moment", it will give you deeper insight into your mind and body functionality.
Another thing is exercise. Beat your body until you can't get out of your bed. Your body has inteligence. Watch Elliot Hulse for that matter.
But most powerfull thing I sugest and I been doing this for 3 years is WHM method. Your life would be changed from the roots.
It consist of breathing techniques, exercises, meditation, and cold exposure. You will influence by will your immune system, cardio-vascular system, hormonal system, muscular system and every system in your body by will.
You will never be sick again, because of the influence of the immune system and voluntarily changing your adrenal level. You will be able to regulate your STRESS hormon by WILL which is called CORTISOL.
Your performance would be supernatural because of the influence of your PH level in your brain by will. Recent studies shown, that low level oxygen in your body produces anxiety, panic attacks, and all other psychiatric syndroms. And by doing this brething technique you will be able to regulate your PH level in real time... that is power, it will give you power of a superhuman.
Stimulating your nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system, will triger all kinds of hormons in your body, dopamin(FOR SLEEP), srotonin happy hormon and maletonin. You will be able to control that.
Exposing your self gradualy to the cold, you will be able to control your adrenal level and cortisol level. Adrenalin will go sky high and cortisol low. It will affect depression and you will feel good and happy.
So much things it will do for you, this is just a tip of the iceberg.
After ice cold bath you will sleep like a baby. Like me lol. It stimulates Vagus nerve and that is the story for it-self. Medicine is not reached there yet, but now stydiying this method, medicine are rewriting books because of this.
Check out the Wim Hof crazy dude and just breathe. All the best!
farming and house chores beat the energy out of me and as you say, when the body does not have the energy left, sleep comes early. I will also check out the breathing method. I am a dementia caretaker and stress is high. I do not want to lose my beans. God bless
I'll definitely give this a try today :)
I will try also!
My mind has historically wondered at nights as well. My wife falls asleep in like 30 seconds meanwhile it takes me hours. The best thing I did to start falling asleep faster was to start going to bed at a consistent time every night even when I wasn’t sleepy. This has started to reprogram my brain to sleep and wake up at the same time each day. This has helped me substantially. Thanks for the post!
I have tried meditation, pills, exercise, changing my eating habits ... seems my anxiety just won't let me sleep no matter what I do.
What I need to try next is those weighted blankets, but they are pretty expensive to purchase and even more to deliver to Canada :(
Give this a try, it is amazing how effective and simple it is.
I can only fall asleep on my belly with my head to the left. I fall asleep very fast but I wake up often....any remedy for that? Does meditation will help in this situation too?
Well... it kind of depends on why you are waking up. Do you perhaps have a bad habit of stopping breathing during the night (like myself)? If so then your belly position is one of the better positions to be in - but you may want to look into getting your sleep tested.
Sleep apnea can easily rob a person of a third of their effective sleep each night. If this is not you and you have no snoring issue then 'belly with head to the side' is also similar to the 'recovery position' - and perhaps experimenting with other sleep positions might help.
Man did you know that by falling asleep by this way you could easily acced to lucids dreams? and these dreams are friking AMAZING I CAN TELL YOU!!
at place in your head where doesnt exist any law of pisique and the only limit is your imagination, that's what happen when you can control yours dream.
if you do this tech to fall asleep for sure you know what a lucid dream is , so ... i would lovee to hear any history of these kind of dreams hahah !
There's also a technique called 4-7-8 that's supposed to work well.
Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound. Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four. Hold your breath for a count of seven. Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of eight.
This works for me, also reading boring text books will make you sleepy as well, just like listening to a boring class. :o
Thank you so much for share!
I will try!
I like to imagine potatoes of all different preparation techniques, but mostly dirty, brown, boring, raw russets falling from the sky, and into the bowls, and gently bouncing onto the carpet, and then suddenly I realize that my bed is a warm baked potato, and I am but a cute little pad of butter nestled up against a cool li'l dollop of sour cream, ever so slowly, yet ever so surely, melting.. into a deep, delicious sleep.
Amazing picture!
Often I will get tired in the evening and sometimes start to fall asleep but when i try to sleep in my bed it can be impossible to fall asleep.
I find cannabis as a great way to get some rest. I know its not widely accepted but it works wonders, it can also backfire and make your brain more active depending on the strain you had.
I wish I could try that, I spend a lot of time alone with my son and I don't feel comfortable with it in the house when I try to teach him to say no to drugs. I have fond memories hanging out with my best friend before he passed away watching south park high. I never was really into it and I can't stand the taste of alcohol but we had a lot of good laughs.
Before someone suggests vaping, that's not happening.
Stoned Sleep isn't real sleep anyway, as folks will find out if/when they finally take a long term break/stop.
Personally, I found leaving the UK, getting more sunshine, and not working 9-5 helped me. But I guess the white wall isn't so drastic!
Yeah i understand mark. I think its a great way to manage things and as a parent i understad your concern. You could always try with CBD oil. But im not sure it will have the same effects on you.
@chuckyfucky, I have often used the green medicine for sleep in the evenings when the brain is over fried from thinking etc, but it does repress the REM sleep cycle.
One huge downside to this is that once you stop using it, the REM cycles go into overload in the first nights leading to intense dreams and often for me it would leave me feeling like I was wide awake while asleep for the first couple nights.
But yeah, I agree its definitely a great tool to use when needed for sure.
CBD oil is definitely worth everyone adding to their diet! I feel our endocannabinoid system has been starved since the prohibition of cannabis many decades ago.
It is a vital component of our body that keeps it in homeostasis, which is in turn vital to everything else the body needs to do in order to stay healthy!
(Can get it easily these days with very low thc, so no chance of wigging out on ya kids. ;) hehe I have one myself and understand that completely.)
i usually just drink
Be sleelpy is healthy
After long time programming whenever i going to sleep its very amazing to white noise! Play it on my smartphone and trying escape from all annoying. I will try this one thanks for share!
Wow, and its as easy as that. Thanks for the enlightenment
I also have problems falling asleep spend hours which I'm meant to be using for sleep and you know time is precious. Thanks for sharing great techniques that'll help me.
I must be lucky, never had trouble sleeping, except when something heavy is on my mind.
What brings me to sleep?
Fanfiction.
Cheap storytelling.
In my head.
Made by myself.
:)
Possibly from the book I am reading or TV I was watching.
Maybe that is meditation?
I will have to try this one. I used to stare behind my eyelids and lie facing up, before I could fall asleep but it doesn't work, not all the time.
Since joining steemit, I don't sleep as much as I would love to, especially at night. So white walls it is for me. I just hope it works. Thanks for the idea @themarkymark
I will try this tonight, thanks for the tip!
A bottle of Vodka used to work for me.
wow this seems to simple to even be true, but I guess it's worth a shot lol i find myself constantly thinking and my mind running rampant right before I go to bed and then it just persists, as you said for sometimes hours at a time... I will have to give the White Wall a go!! Thanks for sharing your technique! Happy sleeping :-)
This is a really interesting idea, sounds too good to be true tho. not for me, I fall asleep in minutes, but I know someone who has a hard time falling asleep. I'll tell him about it.
Very helpfull, I'll try it later. Because for a dyslexic fall a sleep also hardworking, we are easily destracted by any situations. 😫😁
Sleeping disorder is real. I've seen 2-3 close friends and family members suffer from the same.
There's a great technique I suggest them, I'd ask them not to lie down in the bed when they feel like sleeping. Instead I'd suggest them to sit on the couch/bed (in the bedroom) and sleep while they are still sitting because the body gets into deep state of sleep in just half an hour to an hour in the sitting posture.
That's why if you had noticed in ancient India, sadhus and yogis used to meditate sitting (also sleeping in the same position). Notice you'd also sleep more while you travel, students tend to doze off in classrooms etc.
That way, your quality of sleep will be more. Let's say you need 5 hours of sleep to reach a state of deep sleep. That quality of sleep would be received in just an hour or half an hour while you sleep in the sitting position.
P.S. - This is more important, make sure to have your dinner at least couple of hours before going to bed.
I'd suggest you to try it today.
I've always just tried clearing my mind and thinking of nothing. Harder said than done! It doesn't always work, but it's saved me countless hours of lost sleep over the past 35-odd years.
Hey, that white wall kinda make sense! thanks... gonna try tonight :)
Try 'Nightly' app for Android, author: DreamJay Inc. I'm only using it a third night but can already say it works really good :)
I found a great app for meditation called one giant mind.
Its so difficult to switch off nowadays since mobile phones became glued to your hands and your eyeballs to the screens. Easier said than done by try not to do use your mobile atleast 2 hrs before bed. Or i find making yourself yawn helps to secrete melatonin which makes you drift of best not to try and not to think too much otherwise it can send you the other way breezing excercises with long deep breaths works well too.
We will try this method @themarkymark
Hey Mark, an interesting post. I have used a technique that relies on feeling for years (learned it from my days reading Casteneda). Castaneda referred to it as the first gate of dreaming. There is a heavy feeling with a darkness that washes across us when sleep takes us. If you memorize that feeling, you can call it to you and go to sleep almost instantly. I believe that feeling of falling that jolts one awake is whatever is taking place inside of that darkness. But just a belief as I have no means to test out my belief.
Thank you for a quality post. Just curious, but do you use visualization techniques in other aspects of your life?
Well at the end of the day meditation is about emptying your head. So a white, distant, nondescript wall of nothing seems like a good idea for a fast sleep!
That's a good tip! I'm going to try it out tonight.
Especially since starting on Steemit, I've had a harder time falling asleep at night. It's probably because my mind is still gonig a million miles a minute trying to figure out which articles I want to write, what contests I could run, or thinking about articles that people have written. It has made it challenging to get enough sleep.
I've had to be disciplined about turning off the computer a few hours before I go to sleep. I have to accept there will be quality articles that will be written and posted that I will not see. There will be comments I could write, but won't. There will be reward money that I don't get because I'm not online...And that's ok. Tomorrow is another day and after I get enough sleep, I can come back and try again. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I tell myself that it's sleep time and to leave the computer alone. That helps too. I stay focused on the task at hand.
Maybe that will help you too. Take care.
It is such an artform to getting the right mindfulness technique... everyone has such different conditions internally and externally. One of the greatest tools I came across and use is this App below that has a series of Binaural soundtracks designed for different purposes, including inducing the mind into a calm sleepy state. They do a sleep version as well specifically which can also be used to help facilitate Lucid Dreaming etc.
BrainWave: 35 Binaural Series™
I drink water and watch a movie to make me sleepy. I'll try this one.Thank you for sharing this @themarkymark.
Voting for you as witness. You're a good dude it seems.
Always been battling with sleep. Takes me forever to fall asleep although doing meditation.
Wow @themarkymark this article of yours is indeed enlightening.... I'm sure gonna try it out already... Thanks for sharing!
I have had chronic insomnia for 30 years. I have also tried everything 'under the moon' to fix it but without the success I crave. This is the first time I have heard of the White Wall Technique. It sounds very simplistic but I am willing to give it a go. Thanks for this tip @themarkymark I see you have posted some interesting articles recently. Following. Will check them out.
First time because I made it up 10+ years ago and never told anyone but my wife and my mother ;)
Both of which use it.
Haha.......such is the power of positive thinking!!!!
Meditation is a big help! But most of all, try to do fasting! DOn't eat anything in 24hours then after drink fresh juice only. The next day, eat raw vegetable and fruits.
vote for the witness for you! Great job!
What I do, and works for me..:
1 - Quit Caffeine
2 - Use an eye mask (the darker the better)
3 - Use earplugs (eliminate any voice other than the beat of your own heart, which feels great!)
4 - A low dose Melatonin 2-3 times a week. (this may give heart palpitations as a side effect, luckily I don't have it, so always ask your doctor)
5 - LIGHT is your greatest enemy when it comes to sleep. Turn off your monitor / leave that smartPhone aside at least 30 minutes before sleeping.
I hope you find these beneficial :)
Does it really work? I've problems with sleeping and i tried out a lot but it doesn't change yet...
Got similar problem. ..hope this technique works for me
Okay, this sounds too easy! :) I am going to try it tonight though. I typically go to bed with a racing mind that just WILL not stop. I know it's best to clear my head of everything going on in my life. Never thought to imagine a white wall though!
Thanks for your post, I've had similar problems of laying in bed for long stretches before finally falling asleep- as confirmed by my phone's sleep apps ;-D I have some trouble simply trying to clear my mind, and I've found body-scan meditations particularly useful for helping me fall asleep. With body scan I'm able to use my mind for a degree of attention- just enough to acknowledge the sensations of my body. Here's an overview of body scan I wrote for my blog, follow if it's interesting, and hopefully we can build a more robust mindfulness community on steemit!
https://steemit.com/health/@jspots/introduction-to-various-meditations-2-body-scan-meditation
great teaching
upvoted you do the same through this link
https://steemit.com/@fenmark