How to fall asleep faster: what to do tonight

Why trying harder doesn’t work

Sleep comes when your body is ready and your mind is calm. Effort does the opposite: it wakes you up. So the trick is not to force sleep, but to set things up so it comes on its own.

During the day

• Wake up at the same time every day, weekends included. Your body learns when to feel sleepy at night.
• Get daylight in the morning. Ten to thirty minutes outside helps set your body clock.
• Move your body. A walk or other exercise helps, ideally not in the last couple of hours before bed.
• Keep naps short and early, under 30 minutes and before mid-afternoon.
• Stop caffeine by early afternoon. It stays in your body for many hours.

The hour before bed

1. Dim the lights in the last hour.
2. Put screens away, or at least stop scrolling and anything exciting or stressful.
3. Do something calm: read a book, stretch gently, have a warm shower or listen to quiet music.
4. Write down what is on your mind. A short list of tomorrow’s tasks gets them out of your head.
5. Keep the room cool, dark and quiet. Earplugs or an eye mask can help.

In bed

• Slow your breathing. Breathe in gently through your nose for a count of four, and out slowly for a count of six. Repeat for a few minutes.
• Relax your body, part by part. Start at your feet and work up, letting each part go heavy.
• Give your mind something gentle. Picture a calm walk you know well, step by step, or think of a few easy words that start with the same letter.
• Turn the clock away. Checking the time makes you more alert.

If you are still awake after 20 minutes

Get up. Go to another room, keep the light low and do something quiet and a bit dull, like reading a paper book. Go back to bed when you feel sleepy. It feels odd at first, but it teaches your body that bed is for sleeping, not for lying awake and worrying. Doctors use this as part of the main treatment for long-term trouble sleeping.

What to avoid

• Alcohol as a sleep aid. It may help you drop off, but it breaks up sleep later in the night.
• Big meals late in the evening.
• Catching up with long lie-ins. They make the next night harder.
• Staying in bed awake for a long time.

Keep track for two weeks

Note when you went to bed, roughly how long it took to fall asleep, when you woke and how rested you felt. After a couple of weeks, patterns show up: the late coffee, the late scrolling, the weekend lie-in. That tells you what to change first.