Share with us what do you to fall asleep!

One night I thought: "Why do I sometimes take ages to fall asleep? Why am I electric some nights?". After the discovery of lucid dreaming, I started to take a more serious and healthy approach to my sleeping schedule.

If you simply want to sleep better, get lucid, improve recall, or even wake up easier for an WBTB, then it's important that you do some preparation before you go to bed. Everyone has at least on trick to fall asleep easier! From the milk to the old "counting sheep", there are many ways you can improve your sleep just by taking several steps before actually going asleep.

So, feel free to post here what you do, even if it's something as simple as "exercise" or eating some piece of fruit, you name it! Some of us might find something useful that might mean a better night of sleep :D I'll start with me to give people an example of what this might be:

Step 1: defining sleeping schedule

- I have 2 alarms, 1 week to wake up without any "annoying" noises which helps me for DEILD, or aids in my recall and the 2nd one to make sure I get out of bed.
- I set the alarms for all the week and avoid checking them too often: once they're set for the next 7 days, I don't want to worry about looking at clock in the middle of the night to see if I'll wake up.
- Some hours before going bed, I quickly go over the waking time tomorrow. I mentalize myself I have to wake up at X time, and before I even move I'll have to recall my dreams.

Step 2: preparing the room

- One hour before I go to bed, I start getting ready:
- I get all my next day stuff ready (like clothes) and start turning off some lights. A darker room means more melatonin production, which is good for a better night of sleep and better dream quality!
- If I'm staying in the computer for a while longer, I change the brightness of the screen and turn the sound to a minimum.
- When there's about half hour left, I take a quick shower to refresh myself and meanwhile I leave my window open. The more fresh your room is, the easier you will have falling asleep! If you can sleep a window opened, then go ahead it only helps you if the noise doesn't disturb you.
- Now I turn off all lights but the pc one (since it's the weakest one). I get into bed and get my sheets ready. I position my alarm nearby and make sure I got water around.
- In the last 10 minutes, I stretch. It relaxes my muscles and makes me much more comfy in bed. Doesn't need to be some specific exercise, just stretch all your body muscles like if you were a cat :P
- The last step is turning off the pc and opening my dream journal (paper or iphone one). I write "X time woke up, I record dreaming with :" This helps me due being an exercise of prospective memory, meaning my brain will attempt to remind a future action when I wake up.
- I go to sleep and repeat my mantra and eventually puff :)

What do you do? :)

Interesting, I'll post what I do when I go to sleep.

Step 1: Schedule
- Decide when to sleep, when I don't have any upcoming schedules I go to sleep when I feel it's getting too late or when I'm simply tired.

Step 2: Room/Falling asleep
- The first priority goes to temperature, recently I stay up very late so I can use the night to cool down my room before I sleep, since I'm living right in the middle of the city I hate having the window open when I sleep because it's too loud.
- Turn out the door bell if it is still on, because I live in a city of imbeciles and I'm close to a samaritan organization. Combine those 2 and you have about 1 person every other day who is incapable of reading the signs of the doorbell so he/she rings in our apartment even though they have no business with us at all :bang:. This is happening so regularly it's just ridiculous. And there's one more thing, whoever installed the doorbell managed to screw up the circuits so hard that occasionally people press the right bell, yet the wrong bell goes off, generally producing a lot of extra confusion. So I just keep the bell turned off unless I'm expecting something. And when I'm expecting something I usually get woken up several times by those people who are just not capable of reading.
- Then I make sure something to drink and my tag-book is close, I start getting into the mood to sleep.
- If I sleep with music I turn it on.
- If I decide to try supplements I take them.
- I lay down and try not to think too much, recently I used mantras to do this.

1.
-I simply set an alarm on my phone for whatever time I need to get up the next day.

2.
-For me it's winter, so I leave the window only slightly open and put on thermals.
-I lay my DJ next to my bed open to a new page with a pen lying on it.
-I Make sure that bright lights for chargers and computers are covered.
-I Lie in bed staying as still as I can and eventually I fall asleep.