How to fall back asleep in the middle of the night

Who else is here in the middle of the night

Im a registered nurse and most folks resting heart rate is no one near or below 60 while sleeping and the reason I know this is cause I watch there telemetry all night long on a cardiac floor. Best advice for sleep is no caffeine at least 6 hours prior to sleep. Morning caffeine only and then leave it alone the rest of the day and then you will sleep a little better.

The best part about this video is that he doesn't make you feel bad about not getting enough sleep. I like the idea that it's still beneficial even to just lay there and get "non sleep deep rest". I do this a lot so that's really encouraging. All the other advice I've seen about sleep stresses how important it is and just make me feel more anxious about the fact that I'm not getting enough. Thanks for this :)

I sometimes find looking at the clock helps, because for me one of the things that tends to make it harder to fall back asleep is thinking that it must be almost morning and there isn't enough time to sleep. This is especially true in the winter when the sun isn't as much of a clue.

I watched a video by Bhagwan Rajneesh about sleeplessness. He said you lie around all day on the sofa or at a desk and then you want to rest again at night?? You need to do something strenuous like gardening, brisk walking, to tire you out to get a good nights sleep.

This is one of those YouTube videos that come out of nowhere in your feed and are actually helpful.

This goes against what a sleep therapist told me to do. He said to get up out of the bed and read a "boring" book in low light for 10 to 15 minutes and then go back to bed. It was to avoid creating a negative association with the bed which could cause anxiety. However, I didn't feel like that advice was helping me much! I did notice that if I laid in bed I would drift in and out so I was getting some sleep. Whereas if I kept getting up as he suggested, I was dog tired the next day!

I haven't slept well for 35 years. Started when I entered peri menopause. No other symptoms, I just stopped sleeping. I can with certainty, say that just lying in bed is NOT restful. Especially if you haven't slept in a couple of days.

My mom always said, “if you can’t sleep, pretend you’re asleep”. Essentially the same advice!

Sometimes I can't sleep (usually because of caffeine or cayenne pepper) and I noticed that if I just lie there awake, relaxed but not sleeping, I would actually be mostly ok in the morning. I always wondered why. Thanks for the explanation. The most important thing is to not worry about not sleeping.

I had a bad accident years ago and my dad found me wide awake sitting in the den at 3 AM. He asked "What's up" and I told him that I couldn't stop thinking of how I was going to deal with the coming challenges caused by the accident (doctor's appointments, getting rid of my totaled car, ongoing pain etc.) He told me to get a notepad and write down the troubling thoughts so that I would know that I could get up the next day and address the issues because I had the list, therefore no need to keep trying to make a mental list while trying to go to sleep. It worked for me and I still use that advice and it even helps when I have much smaller concerns.

Dear everyone, I wish you peace inside your soul. We are all light and all connected, don’t be scare, all gonna be ok. Your futur gonna be fantastic because you are fantastic. Thank you so much for your reading.

What works for me is counting down from 100 saying each time I go deeper and deeper into relaxation This takes your mind off the merry go round of thoughts and self hypnotises yourself into relaxation I rarely make it to fifty

Agree about relaxing and just laying there. I've done that for years. I think about how comfortable I am, how I used to hate getting up for school or work when I wanted to stay in bed. So appreciating the comfort of my bed and just relaxing helps me fall back asleep.

All the information coming at us about how important sleep is just adds to my stress about not being able to get back to sleep. This makes me feel much better.

A bunch of those things have helped me but the one that had by far the most impact is learning breath mindfulness, so I can just focus on the sensations of the breath in the belly while noting "rising" and "falling". Puts me to sleep almost every time, there's literally nothing better on earth to slow down your heartrate while also quieting the thinking/anxious mind, which imo is sleep's biggest enemy.

The breathing does help. It´s relaxing, absolutely, but it also keeps our mind from wandering off or thinking of something stressful. I focus on the feeling of cool air entering my nostrils, then warm air being exhaled through the nose, and before I know it, I´m asleep again. I don´t mean to make it sound simplistic because I struggled for decades, but this has been working for me lately and I´m so grateful.

This can be challenging to do, but if I'm dealing with anxiety, I've found that by telling myself after getting in bed that this is the time for rest, that I can resume my worrying tomorrow and blanking out anxious thoughts, really helps.

Sleeping is what I look forward each days, I can't get enough of it!! I need between 10 to 12 hours sleep to function properly during the day ❤

I have a house plan in my head for my dream home, so what I do I start by walking into the house and pick a certain room, I then image it's layout, decor etc. My favourite is the master bedroom, I start by walking into that room and start on the layout and even before I get to the ensuite bathroom I always fall asleep! Works every time!