Years ago I tried to memorize several poems. I just start reciting “The Ballad of Gunga Din” in my head. I’m usually asleep before I get to the third stanza. If I get anywhere near the end, I know it’s really been a bad day. The couple of Shakespeare sonnets I tried to memorize usually work pretty well too.
9 Likes
The technique that works for me is a nightly 420 session, watch a couple hours of anime and then go to bed. My sleep tracker has seen some nights where I was so out, that I remained motionless for HOURS, like a dead man.
The only downside is weight gain from munchies.
4 Likes
But now I’m thinking about saying “don’t think” for 10 seconds and the cycle continues…
6 Likes
Yes, but a different mantra might have meant less of my hard-earned cash going to the Maharishi.
Now, of course, as a mathematics professor all I have to do is lecture to myself and I’m out like a light.
3 Likes
This! Any minimally complicated and completely unimportant sorting or combinatorial problem and I’m out like a light. Useful Skyrim potions, how to optimally pack my sock drawer, flavors of ice cream if we could taste with our eyes, bad names for a startup, that sort of thing.
2 Likes
i do the relaxation part he goes through at the beginning, and then i think back to the beginning of my day, when i first woke up, and try to remember EVERYTHING i did in exact, crystal-clear detail, moment to moment, no shorthand (none of this, “i showered, shaved, brushed my teeth…” business – i try to remember the scent of the soap, the water temp, etc etc). i never make it to making coffee before i’m fast asleep.
15 Likes
That’s either a really cool idea or terrifying. As long as I’m out before I get to the morning’s first meeting, I’d be OK.
6 Likes
I’ve seen this many times over the years and when I see
all I can say is fuck you. If only it were that easy.
My biggest problem is that when I’m falling into the intermediate nether world I become aware of that and I’m involuntarily pulled back up.
5 Likes
well, from what i understand, the brain gets SUPER tired when making lists, so doing something like this – which is really kind of a tedious, chronological list – makes it want to shut down quickly, lol.
4 Likes
I’ve seen this technique thrown around and credited to various groups of the military for years. I asked a friend in the military if this was something he was taught and his response was that the real military sleep technique was just to be so goddamn exhausted that you’d happily fall asleep on top of a bag of hammers.
15 Likes
I sometimes wonder how much of the sleep problems we hear about these days is because of substances and medications. Starbucks has made it so people (myself included) drink coffee all day and not just in the morning. Prescription drugs seem to have insane amounts of side effects that often include daytime drowsiness. People (myself included) seem to be drinking more alcohol since the pandemic. I don’t know really cuz I don’t have the problem myself, and I am in no way in a position to advise anyone, but I wonder.
There was a mark Twain anecdote about how when he was sick his Doctor would advise him to give up smoking and drinking and sure enough when he’d quit a while the issue would clear up. Then he met a woman and tried to give her the advice and she said she didn’t smoke or drink… she had no vices to give up and so her case was hopeless! Ha.
5 Likes
Seriously, if I need to fall asleep I make up some math problem or organization problem i have to solve in my head before I can go to sleep. I tell myself I HAVE to solve the problem before falling asleep. Within a minute or two i’m out.
The brain seems to want to do the opposite of what it’s told to do when it comes to sleep.
3 Likes
Crush my sleeping pill and snort it?
6 Likes
Its still really unclear if the military actually taught this or not. From what my active duty friends told me, the military way of getting to sleep was to either A) be so exhausted that staying awake was harder, or B), there’s a pill for that.
3 Likes
I’ve been that way without medication for more than 40 years.
Step 1: Stop moving or pay attention to anything.
Step 2: Wake up.
Step 1b equates to basically closing my eyes and within 5-10 seconds I’m out. A routinely fall asleep while watching TV if I’m not really interested in it.
1 Like
This is one talent I do have. When my wife and I were first together, I mentioned that it took me a long time to fall asleep. She started tracking it and it took me, over a month or so, an average of about 75 seconds for me to fall asleep. Sometimes as little as twenty seconds. I’m not quite as fast these days, but mostly it comes pretty easy. (NB: But if I wake up at 3AM or something I have a very hard time getting back to sleep)
3 Likes
I’d never heard of this and I spent 20+ years in the Army. Probably a myth
5 Likes
I tried this but it not only led my mind to wander more, it added the temptation to write down my ideas. 
In a way, this engages my mind like reading - because that’s how I remember poems. Even worse, the analysis from literature classes kicks in, and my thoughts focus on what was learned about the rhyme, meter, symbolism, etc… Getting into works from other languages is worse, because that leads to translating…
Sometimes it seems like my subconscious just doesn’t want to shut down. I’m curious to find out if this exercise works without the solution to some obscure problems put on the back burner coming to mind. It’s difficult to prevent a single thought spawning two or three other points to ponder (or research/record ASAP).
If only that was true for everyone. My brain is hooked on lists. As a kid my lists had lists…and now I’m into spreadsheets and matrices. 
6 Likes
My situation is funny to me, because my heart issues are genetic, and I can remember when my Dad got put on blood pressure meds, and he just started falling asleep anywhere and everywhere. If he sat down and stopped doing anything, he was out. And now that’s me. On the plus side, insomnia used to be a real problem for me, and it just isn’t anymore. On the whole, though, I think I’d rather have the insomnia than the heart problems.
8 Likes
