Post #1556891

@autistics@fedigroups.social @lizzard@social.tchncs.de I find it helpful to sit down with a journal and pen, and write down everything that comes to mind before going to bed. Sometimes I just jot down things that come to mind, on a slip of paper (try not to use phones near bed at all) without much expansion, as a promise to my mind that I will come back to this later tomorrow, then I visualize myself putting the idea into a book and putting the book into my mind's storage library shelves. Usually, after I do this, I get /another/ idea or worry, and another, and another, but I keep repeating the same mind ritual, and then 30 ideas later, it slows down, and I usually visualize myself sitting in front of that library and just watching the collection of books. As the ideas slow down, I try to have a complete void of emptiness in my mind, accompanied with a breathing technique with one simple rule; exhales for longer periods than inhales. The void keeps getting disrupted again with new ideas, but I go back to put them on the shelves, then void again, as much as I can. It is some kind of meditation probably of some sorts, but yeah. After a while, my mind calms down enough that sudden sleep takes over. If something is really sticky and doesn't allow me to put it away, then I try to override it, by basically "daydreaming". I put myself into a different world, with interesting characters, throw some random events happening, and just explore how the world and the characters evolve in my mind, and how I would interact as someone in that world. If I'm lucky, the grip of imagination overrides the grip of anxiety, and usually, as I delve more into the world, my mind slowly transitions into the "in-between" state where you're starting to sleep but the imaginary world is playing on its own, and then somehow I wake up the next day. As a last resort, which I prefer not to do a lot, I would play some kind of video that takes a little bit of brain power to understand, but not too much. Something like a history documentary, or someone playing a classic video game, or some programming stream, or some such. It captures my mind when I pay attention to it, but then, if the video is low-stakes and "chill" enough, I find myself falling asleep to it. I tried background noise things, like rain and storms and calming music, they help a bit, but not enough usually to override anxiety, because they require zero brain cycles to consume, unlike a game play-through video for example. A few more random things that have smaller effects: Resolve not to eat for 6+ hours before bed; your only relief in the morning. If my brain knows it will not have food until the morning, no matter how hungry I feel, I tend to fall asleep better, just to wake up and eat excitedly. Try sleeping on the floor in a different room, pick your pillow and blanket, and just sleep on the floor, maybe use a carpet or something like that under you if it's too cold / hard, but not a mattress or anything thick. Sleeping on the floor, in a different room, for some reason helps sometimes, no idea how exactly it tricks my brain. Raising my feet slightly over some couch or chair, temporarily, while sleeping on the floor helps sometimes, but maybe that's a special case due to being anemic or something. The right environment and body temperature and a comfy bedding help a lot too. Also, train your mind to know that sleep place is sleep place, i.e. don't do anything in bed that is not sleep. And, again, for the love of all that is holy, no phones in bed at all. Put it in some other room if you can. If you need the last resort solution of playing a video, then prefer to play it on a laptop or tablet on a side table or something, and lower the brightness, and use some red-shift tool to make screen colors warmer. I hope you can find something that helps, and I wish you the serenity of dreams.