It’s actually like the title asks; What does everyone here do when you can’t sleep and are wide awake besides being on phone?
So let’s say it’s in the middle of the night and you are unable to sleep. You have to keep things soundless due to family or partner.
Trying to get the phone usage significantly lower when being in bed but it feels like nothing can replace the ‘easiness of mindlessly scrolling’.
Dreaming awake. Idk how to call it otherwise.
I invent to myself the most ridiculous stories of things of my imagination and i play them in my head, like a sort of head game.
When i do a sufficiently long story, i often fall asleep on it and i continue it the next evening, and it can last months. Plus you get better at mental visualisation the more you do it. I remember dreams almost every night since i did that for a long time.
Season 1 of Bob’s burgers at a whisper. All lights off. Phone brightness down to nothing.
This but futurama.
I mean, I know it’s entirely opposite to the accepted advice…but when I can’t sleep, I actually find it helpful to go on my phone.
Scrolling social media doesn’t help though. What helps is putting on long form videos on YouTube that aren’t overly engaging. It helps if you’ve seen them before too. If my thoughts are racing, having something else to focus on (but not too focused) helps a ton.
Sitting in the dark without a mild stimulus doesn’t help, despite what the common advice given seems to be.
I know you said you can’t have sound, but what about headphones?
How It’s Made, commercial bakery prep, or street food making are my go tos for long form videos to try to sleep.
Supposedly the best thing to do is to lay perfectly motionless in bed despite being wide awake, because that’s still a form of rest and “better than nothing”. This isn’t always what I do myself, though: sometimes I will take an extra melatonin tablet or use the bathroom, and I always wear my trusty eye mask in any case; but if you absolutely have to fidget with something in bed, I think the most recommendable thing is physical paper books. Either books for reading, including comic books; or a notebook into which you can jot down ideas, journal, doodle, whatever it may be.
I leave my phone further away.
Close enough that I’ll hear it if there’s an actual emergency, but far enough that I won’t reach for it just because I’m bored.That’s enough to take care of most of my mindless night scrolling.
If I just can’t fall asleep, sometimes I’ll go drift off in the hammock outside or something that’ll cool my body a bit.
Tbh, sometimes I just rub one out ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also works as a decongestant.
I’m not a doctor, don’t use this as medical advice.I read a book. It’s quiet, it’s restful, it often helps me get back to sleep but even if it doesn’t it’s still relaxing and worthwhile.
Kindle with a dim backlight is perfect for this.
Happy my recent upgrade has the yellow backlight feature for just this reason
Ambien.
Throw on an eye mask and headphones and turn on an audiobook.
Call it quits and get started on work, play a video game, run or workout.
Ambien can be crazy though, my mother used to go out and eat an entire cake (or cook something and eat it all) in the middle of the night. More anecdotes than can be counted.
As an alternative (because, being her child I would probably do the same and would rather not) I made mini brownies with 3MG THC and threw them in the freezer …30 seconds in the microwave and in an hour I’m sound asleep.
- YouTube (radio drama channels) - there are some fantastic plays.
- podcasts using antennapod on F-Droid.
Please expand on the radio drama channels
Oooh, do you have any recommendations for the former?
Search on “radio dramas” in the bar regularly until “radio dramas” appears in the capsule shaped in the listings for you; you might want to try “BBC Radio” too. I’m a old fart Brit bought up in the golden era of BBC for context.
- I adore le Carré and there are quite a few read by him, some quite abridged. However, these will probably stop you going to sleep because you stay awake trying to guess what’s actually happening.
- RD Wingfield
- the Whitehall 1212 series about the old Scotland Yard are half hour stories of the old type where the criminals always give themselves up and explain why they did it!
- Paul Temple (and …)
- Miss Marple… and related Agatha Christie
- Dorothy L Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey)
- The trenchcoat PI with the classic American Private Investigator voice and demeanour. Damn. Can’t remember the name. Philip Marlowe.
- there’s a Nordic series too: Martin Beck.
- PD James.
I hope that’s of some use. Don’t hesitate to write if you listen to a good one i may have missed!
It’s difficult to provide channels because YouTube takes channels down for some reason and they reappear under similar names or not at all.
Send them a few pennies if you can or at least like and subscribe.
I explicitly command my brain to stop thinking. When something pops up again I would go “nope, you ain’t doing that”.
I would visualize something being cleaned up, like a whiteboard being erased, or turning screens off.
I do that too, like wiping my whole whiteboard/brain completely clean. It takes a few tries often.
I live walking distance to the best queer bar in the south, you can find me there many nights after midnight. Plenty of clubs, dancing, house music. I just be roaming the night looking for pretty lights and thumping music. Perks of living in a major city
I read a book. Usually have an e-book or graphic novel queued up. Worse case, grab a paper book and a booklight, set to low. That always works.
I play some music (thru earbuds unless my wife happens to be away). My go to is the Goldberg Variations. I think the reason it works, even though it can be quite busy and fast in some parts is that there is enough complexity to occupy the mind, but enough sameness to lull, and I know it really well.
Sometimes I’ll take 1mg of melatonin, and a cup of warm milk with honey.
Coom to weird porn for an hour and feel like shit afterwards, then take melatonin.
I listen to audiobooks I’ve already listened to so that they don’t take much effort to keep up with while still being more interesting than laying there motionless with nothing to do.
I do this with low key youtube videos, downloaded to mp3.
Also, take another clonodine after a couple of hours.
Hell yeah sister love that long form content
Count from 1 to 10, then 10 to 1. With each number, relax your body a little more. When the mind strays, bring it back to counting. Repeat until unconscious.
If that isn’t working at all, get up, go to another room, play soft music at low volume on headphones, and depending on the circumstances read a book, jot stuff down, or just contemplate stuff. Chill until sleepy, then either go back to bed or just curl up where you are.
