101–110 of 195 posts
The relaxation method in the article requires physical comfort, which isn't always available. I used to lie awake for hours when I was younger; now I can fall asleep quickly in all places (bus seats, desk chair, etc). What changed? I ride a bicycle. That fixed my blood circulation, so I don't get cold feet. I also read the Bible and pray. It's very easy to fall asleep in church on a hard wooden pew. The same approach…
I have had weird sleeping issues all my life, and the key for me to falling asleep was when I found out that our body gets tired not when it is warm, but when it warms up. So next time you can't fall asleep, take off the blankets, make sure your room is cold, and then get really, uncomfortably cold, and stay that way for at least 15 minutes. Then, and this is key, cover your whole body only with your sheet, and then…
Regarding falling asleep - I've noticed an interesting phenomenon in myself. Usually it takes me around 30 minutes to fall asleep, during which period I seem to gradually mellow, my internal narrative becomes weaker until I finally fall asleep. During the final stages of that process, I sometimes imagine beautiful and quite complex music or art that I like a lot (unfortunately, I'm nowhere skilled enough to try to cr…
Same for me. Sometimes on bad nights it can be hours but I need that time to "unwind". The music is awesome. I sometimes get hypnogogia. I can imagine the music and then, as I get closer to sleep, I actually hear the music. If I don't imagine music and I get hypnogogia, I'll hear people chatting next to me. That was quite scary before I understood what was going on. If I don't get hypnogogia, I'll start imagining odd…
Just this year I learned an invaluable lesson about falling asleep. When my brain starts "daydreaming" random chains of thoughts, just let it do that. I used to try to clear my mind, but the opposite seems to work much better for me.
I was just about to post the same thing. Sometime over the last few years I started to notice I was moments away from falling asleep because my stream of consciousness would become nonsensical. I then discovered I could fall asleep faster by purposefully daydreaming nonsensical sceneries.
I have two 'tricks' to falling asleep (but this article looks better). The first is to play the 'unrelated words' game, where you think of a word as completely unrelated to the last word as possible. The second is to count up and work out whether the current number is prime. Both occupy the mind while minimizing stress, allowing the body to relax into sleep. I'm definitely going to try the techniques in the article t…
Getting stressful thoughts off my mind is important. But just trying to stop thinking about whatever is worrying me doesn't work because my mind doesn't like to sit there doing nothing, so it looks for something to fill the time with. And the easy choice is whatever issues or problems I've been struggling with lately.
But if I do a mundane task, my brain has something to work on, and it doesn't go looking for things to occupying itself, which means the risk of thinking about something stressful is much less.
Personally I use a crossword puzzle app on my phone. It requires my full attention to think through different words, and the clues give sufficient fodder that I can have some harmless, non-stressful mental tangents. And the thought of leaving a crossword puzzle and coming back later doesn't bother me, unlike say quitting a game of chess in the middle would.
Regarding falling asleep - I've noticed an interesting phenomenon in myself. Usually it takes me around 30 minutes to fall asleep, during which period I seem to gradually mellow, my internal narrative becomes weaker until I finally fall asleep. During the final stages of that process, I sometimes imagine beautiful and quite complex music or art that I like a lot (unfortunately, I'm nowhere skilled enough to try to cr…
Sounds very similair to Dali's process. Where he would meditate holding a kitchen utensil on top of a pan. And when he would fall asleep it would fall making a sound and wake him up with i inspration for his next painting. http://www.creativitypost.com/authors/profile/33/mmichalko
INTERVIEWER
What is your writing schedule now?
HOUELLEBECQ
I wake up during the night around one a.m. I write half-awake in a semi-conscious state. Progressively, as I drink coffee, I become more conscious. And I write until I’m sick of it.
I am in the minority group of fast sleeper but it is more to do with my blood stickiness. sometimes I am a bit scared as it is too quick.
To backtrack a bit, I've been having decent success with meditating to fall asleep. Namely, the basic technique is to simply focus on my breath -- specifically, on the very point at which I can feel my breath entering and exiting my nostrils (or wherever the outermost point of my body is that I can feel my breath going in and out of), and whenever I notice my attention drifts away from my breath to just gently, without reproach, to focus it back on my breath again.
That technique usually worked for me, if I wasn't too agitated. The problem was that sometimes I'd have thoughts really rushing through my mind when I tried to fall asleep, and then even meditating like that wasn't enough. I analyzed what was going on and decided that just focusing on my breath was too monotonous, and gave me too much time for my mind to drift away to thinking about other things. What I needed was a better way to keep my mind busy with something monotonous, but not too monotonous.
So I came up with a small modification which has worked better. It's basically the same as above, except on every other breath, instead of focusing on the breath, I'd focus on whatever sensation in my body that's most noticeable.
For instance, I might feel a lot of pressure on a body part that I'm lying on, like a certain part of my left arm or something. So every other breath, I'd focus on that. Whatever that is that is most noticeable might change from time to time, so I'd just go with whatever it happens to be. And every other breath, I'd focus on the sensation of my breath as usual. So effectively, I'd be alternating from focusing on my breath on one breath, and on the next on whatever sensation in my body was most noticeable, and then back to my breath.
Wearing earplugs and a night mask (blindfold) helps too.