I had a severe case of not being able to sleep if my mind was busy after dinner time e.g. coding, debugging, mentally solving a problem. Adjusting light temperature, using flux software etc. helped marginally, but never attacked the root of the problem. What really helped was meditation i.e. being able to take my mind away from everything & focus on /dev/null. It is like a magic button. I can fall asleep whenever I consciously wish to divert my attention. Just a single book & a month of practice.
Next challenge : Wake up whenever I feel like. Haven't found the magic button yet. All the fancy alarm clocks, sleep trackers, REM techniques aren't helping.
Same experience here. For me it was two realizations:
1. Focusing awareness via meditation techniques is a great sleep aid.
2. When your mind is buzzing, it's because it thinks it needs to work through problems or solidify memories before it shuts down for the night. Sometimes it's right, and rather than fighting that:
a. Give your mind other time to garbage collect than the moments before sleep;
b. Don't feed your mind new problems in the last hour or two before bed.
> b. Don't feed your mind new problems in the last hour or two before bed.
This has always been the key problem, for me and I suspect for many others.
I need to be asleep by midnight or 1am if I want any chance of feeling okay the next day. That means I need to stop working around 10pm or earlier, to give my mind ample time to just fucking let go of whatever I was concentrating on. I can leave the laptop open, browse reddit, follow Twitter links, or watch TV. But the IDE and email have to close.
It sucks, it's hard, but I discovered sleep is pretty damn valuable, and most of the time what I'm working on isn't actually due at 7am the next morning.
The magic button to wake up for me was having a schedule. I goto bed and wake up at the same time every day (even the weekends). It took me months, but forcing myself to physically get out of bed every morning did the trick. Now I wake up without an alarm clock.
The alarm I use on my phone is set to only turn off when a specific NFC tag is scanned. I have the tag placed down the hall in my bathroom.
It is the best alarm trick I've used to date and the only one that hasn't worn off after a couple of months. I absolutely hate it in the morning, but it works.
The one danger is getting frustrated and powering off my phone, but I've found even my half asleep self doesn't want to do this. I have backup physical alarm clocks just in case though.
1. "Mindfulness in Plain English" - Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. Really liked it & easy to follow.
2. "Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life" - Thich Nhat Hanh. Also good, but found it a bit repetitive. Maybe because I'd already gone through the first one.
Edit: My advice is to read the book so that you enjoy it. After a little bit of practice, you'll find that when you want to sleep, just meditate a little bit. The mind will feel lighter and you will automatically drift to sleep. Don't force yourself to shut off your mind, let it happen gradually. Observe yourself when you drift away. In short, cherish the process, don't take it as an exercise.
I'm curious why you say that. Where did you get that reference from?
Looking through chdir's comment history, the only reference to a book regarding meditation and stress is Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana.
I'm interested in the book chdir's referring to as well.
You're probably right. The book I mentioned is the one I see most frequently recommended as a how-to guide to mindfulness. I have not read Mindfulness in Plain English, but judging by the title it sounds like a similar approach.
I've tried meditation, which seemed to helpful for my mental well being, but seemed not to be the same state of mind I need to be in to fall asleep. The type of meditation I looked into involves not pursuing thoughts and just acknowledging them. Sleep seems to be more about following silly imaginary things across different associations.
I've fluctuated between being able to sleep easily and being unable to go to bed.
In the end the issue has always been satisfaction. If I feel satisfied at the end of the day, there's no resistance to sleep. If I am "missing" something to satisfy me, I follow that craving and keep myself up far too late. Sometimes that's stimulation, sometimes it's entertainment, sometimes it's relaxation.
Meditation 'cures' the issue for me too, but not really. The issue is that when I am in the state that keeps me from being able to sleep, I tend to put off trying to meditate, in the same way I put off going to bed. It helps, but the root of it is finding balance in my day.
Even through meditation if certain mental needs aren't being met, my mind will get forced off track. Sometimes I need more creative stimulation, sometimes I need to get lost in a good story, sometimes I just need to space out and let some background processes clean up.
My best sleep and wake cycle happened when I had a bit of a mental (hormonal?) boost after my daughter was born. It seems a bit funny, because most people complain about how they lose sleep with the baby needing to be fed etc. But for about 6 months everything just felt right, and at 9 or 10 PM or whatever, going to bed just felt right, like there wasn't anything else in the day that I wished that I could do. I'd wake up after getting enough sleep without an alarm at 6:30 or so, and my daughter was sleeping through the night.
Now that ultimate satisfaction feeling has kind of worn off, my daughter is 2, is pretty demanding of my time, and when I get home from work it's a constant stream of doing things for other people without an opportunity to attend to my own needs. Forcing myself to go to sleep at 9 more than a couple of days in a row becomes impossible just because by that point my body just says "Fuck you, you aren't sleeping, you have things I need you to do. Fun things. Or at least you better start looking for something fun."
And the more tired I am, the harsher that is. In general, my best successes come from getting enough rest in the first place. The more tired I am going into a day, the harder it is to feel satisfied by the end of it, and the harder it is to sleep.
To that end, I nap on the weekend to catch up on sleep. It's part of my schedule to the point that my wife expects it. No matter how rough the week is, by Saturday afternoon I'll probably have caught up.
The other thing I try to do is be cognizant of what I'm craving and feed that need. A lot of sort of wasted time can happen while you're frustrated that you want something but you're not sure what it is, or you avoid it for some reason. Maybe I've had an exhausting but not very mentally stimulating week and I've been playing a lot of video games. I might have previously tried to force myself to not play video games if I felt I was playing them too much, but that would lead to me procrastinating on anything else either, and then ultimately caving when it got late in the evening and playing anyways but playing too late. Now I might recognize that that's the kind of stimulation that I'm missing, and get it out of the way ASAP, which might be enough to let me get to bed a little earlier.
Waking up is easy when you actually sleep as much as your body wants, no alarm needed even. The real problem is getting to bed early enough that you consistently get to sleep as much as your body wants while still feeding those needs. If you have a mentally unsatisfying and draining day, and all you can do after you come home is cook, clean, and go to sleep in order to get enough sleep to get up for work the next day, you're going to find that soon you won't be able to sleep again, because your brain is kicking your ass for not meeting its needs.
It's very encouraging to hear someone else has trouble sleeping for the same reasons.
Just to add on to what you've said, I find myself holding off sleeping because it means that another work-day is waiting when I wake up.
Meaning, when the time to go to sleep (a good time) rolls around, all I can think of is all the things I haven't done that I should do. And that is stressful, so I end up holding off sleep even more, doing shit to distract myself. Such as Reddit, Quora, or YCombinator.
The things that I feel like I should have done are either personal growth or skill-improvement, or something (like you said) that I wanted to do to meet my own needs.
And it is really frustrating because it makes work a ton harder and it's discouraging, because I know I'm not performing at, or near, 100% like I could be.
I don't know what a good solution is, but it was helpful to read someone else who struggles with the same problem.
Thanks for your story.
Next challenge : Wake up whenever I feel like. Haven't found the magic button yet. All the fancy alarm clocks, sleep trackers, REM techniques aren't helping.