please help, impossible time falling asleep

[AD0123]

Ever since I was a kid it always took me a while to fall sleep maybe 40 minutes to an hour if I am going to bed at a decent time. I am also a night owl, I can get 5-6 hours of sleep on a school/work day, be doing stuff all day and then easily stay up until 5 am that night if I want to. I have been doing wake back to bed, I'll sleep 4-5 hours and then try to nap 3-4 hours after I wake up. The past 3 days I have been unable to do this. The first day I got to sleep after more than one attempt to nap. The past 2 days I have just laid in bed awake for hours unable to nap, even though I got little sleep the night before. I go through my regular routine, listen to sleep aids, music, lucid dream inductions. I have been able to consistently nap before but it still takes FOREVER to fall asleep. Maybe it is due to stress or emotional things but I am not going through anything particularly difficult right now. I just wish there was a way to fall asleep in 10-15 minutes like I see other people do, but its so impossible for me I don't know why.

[Arch]

Relaxation, make sure you are going to bed at the same time every night. Listen to relaxing sounds. Naturespace app on iphone.

[Arimane]

There are few things you can try. In first place, you should consider that the input of "sleep" gets to your brain when your body is not moving at all. So you should try to stay still. Other little tips I found useful were: try to get to sleep on a very unconfortable place, like on the floor. After a 10 minutes trying so, just move to the bed, and you'll easy fall asleep quite fast. You can also give a chance to phisical exercise, in order to make your body tired. Also, diminuish the pc activity before sleep... there are tons of factors, add some infos more for further help, would be more easy. Hope you get better.

[Ivan452]

First things you should not do right before sleeping: - don't eat 2h , and don't drink 30-60min before you go to sleep. - don't play video games, watch a movie or anything that might get you excited and your brain pumping. - don't take a hot bath, a normal shower will do. What helped me is a mix of some meditation, thought control and relaxation techniques. You can try different mixes in order to find out what works for you. This requires a bit more thought control, but after 5 days you will get it. I lay down on my back, make myself comfortable, legs a bit spread hands beside me, palms turned up. (you can try different positions I'm just saying my form of it) Then I start relaxing every part of my body from toes working my way up. This will also require some practice. Basically what you do is you concentrate on the part of your body until its completely relaxed. Especially pay attention to neck and head muscles. (you can practice this during the day also) After I do that. I count from 10 to 1. Slowly relaxing my body in general. When I reach 1 then I count from 10 to 2. Then from 10 to 3. And so on. If u get to 10 to 10. You go again. At some point you wont feel your body at all. And you will easily fall to sleep. But you cant let any thought interfere. Just concentrate on relaxing and breathing. At start you will get urges to move, or change sleep position but after a few days you will get used to it.

[BeeClock]

Why no hot bath?

[Ivan452]

You can take a hot bath, but like 1.5-2h before bed time. Don't take it like 10 min before sleep because it will speed up circulation. Also, when I said don't eat, don't also go to bed hungry. But if you have to eat, eat light.