A lot of the normal sleep hygiene stuff usually results in worse sleep for me.
I need to be reading something not especially interesting and keep going until I feel like I’m about to fall asleep, then put my phone on the side table and try to catch that wave.
TV on whilst I’m trying to fall asleep is even better (I don’t have the step where I need to put my phone down) but it keeps my partner awake so I don’t get to use that option very often.
If I don’t have anything to occupy my mind, it freewheels at high speed and ultimately ends up keeping me awake.
I usually read sci-fi / fantasy, but I’ve come to recognize that certain authors are dense, and Tolkien is one of them. Trying to read too much of Tolkien at once is like trying to eat too much rich food; you’ve got to take a break from time to time. All the annotations in the above book make the text even more dense, but it’s still interesting stuff, like the mythological origins of Gandalf, or the tiny changes Tolkien made from early editions of the book. So I want to read this, it’s not like I’m forcing myself to read some godawful textbook, but I think when I’m reading it at night, my brain gets to a point where it just goes “Ah fuck it,” and I start to nod off.
Also pretty good for this: Isaac Asimov, or Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August.
Sometimes I’ll find a longform article, but those can be a bit too engaging sometimes.
I have a lot of success with reading about a topic on something like Wikipedia where if I get to the end of a page and want to continue reading, there’s loads of links to follow to related stuff.
Oh snap, you’re me! I just wrote about having the same routine!
As to “sleep hygiene” stuff, I find that a lot of well-intentioned tools and advice simply don’t work for me. That’s why I value hearing what creative solutions the fellow members of my neurotribe come up with. It’s also validating to find that others ended up organically following the same routines as I do.
was my drug-free go to sleep solution for a few months. Just barely interesting enough to want to read it, but also tedious enough that I’d get maybe a page or two in before I’d be nodding off.
![[C-Section] Bedtime](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c3bb77ea-5b5b-4bde-bb47-4292245c23c3.jpeg){kind=link}
A lot of the normal sleep hygiene stuff usually results in worse sleep for me.
I need to be reading something not especially interesting and keep going until I feel like I’m about to fall asleep, then put my phone on the side table and try to catch that wave.
TV on whilst I’m trying to fall asleep is even better (I don’t have the step where I need to put my phone down) but it keeps my partner awake so I don’t get to use that option very often.
If I don’t have anything to occupy my mind, it freewheels at high speed and ultimately ends up keeping me awake.
I don’t care for Horror, so in turn it is the perfect medium for going to sleep.
https://rustyquill.com/show/the-magnus-archives/
https://youtube.com/@theexploringseries
Beats that AI drivel these days. Further recommendations welcome…
That’s an interesting idea. What do you read in general?
I usually read sci-fi / fantasy, but I’ve come to recognize that certain authors are dense, and Tolkien is one of them. Trying to read too much of Tolkien at once is like trying to eat too much rich food; you’ve got to take a break from time to time. All the annotations in the above book make the text even more dense, but it’s still interesting stuff, like the mythological origins of Gandalf, or the tiny changes Tolkien made from early editions of the book. So I want to read this, it’s not like I’m forcing myself to read some godawful textbook, but I think when I’m reading it at night, my brain gets to a point where it just goes “Ah fuck it,” and I start to nod off.
Also pretty good for this: Isaac Asimov, or Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August.
Sometimes I’ll find a longform article, but those can be a bit too engaging sometimes.
I have a lot of success with reading about a topic on something like Wikipedia where if I get to the end of a page and want to continue reading, there’s loads of links to follow to related stuff.
Oh snap, you’re me! I just wrote about having the same routine!
As to “sleep hygiene” stuff, I find that a lot of well-intentioned tools and advice simply don’t work for me. That’s why I value hearing what creative solutions the fellow members of my neurotribe come up with. It’s also validating to find that others ended up organically following the same routines as I do.
This right here
was my drug-free go to sleep solution for a few months. Just barely interesting enough to want to read it, but also tedious enough that I’d get maybe a page or two in before I’d be nodding off.