Ways to Help Cure Insomnia*

Remove physical impediments to sleep

Make sure your room is dark, the covers are warm, and there is no noise. Otherwise, you don't have a fighting chance. Avoid alcohol and food since they reduce the quality of sleep. Establish a habit of a standard bedtime, triggering a relaxation response and using your circadian rhythms to good advantage.

Visualize success

This technique was first championed in The Inner Game of Golf (or was it tennis?) Just like Jack Nicholas, mentally practice your form. Imagine fixing your room, doing the exercises below and then peacefully going to sleep. Remember that good sleepers don't fight their way to sleep, it simply overtakes them. Visualization only takes a minute and can't hurt.

Release muscle tension

Over-the-counter sleep aids are just muscle relaxants which can render the muscles useless while leaving the mind wide awake. A natural alternative is to tense and release each muscle for 5 seconds starting with the toes and moving upward to the facial muscles. Each release brings an awareness of relaxation and combats unconscious muscle tightening. This 5 minute drill conquers a physiological barrier to sleep and helps overcome a potent psychological barrier, the helpless feeling of not being to do anything about the situation.

Adverse Intention

This is it. The big gun. For many insomniacs, it can reduce the sleep onset time to an average of 15 minutes.

Hold your eyes half-way open. Resist their natural urge to shut. The resistance is not expressed as a fervent, life-or-death quest; rather, it is a gentle effort and preference to keep the eyes open. If you become aware that the eyes have shut, gently open them again half-way. As you become pro-active, as you divert your attention, and as your mind lingers in this twilight state, sleep will stealthily slide down the stairs an overtake you (just as it does for naturally good sleepers like you once were). Feel the warm glow as you fade off and your body begins to renew.

* Disclaimer

I'm not a doctor. This is advice is based on a combination of personal experience, reading about insomnia, and horse sense. Don't do anything stupid to "put yourself to sleep."

If your problem is severe enough to impact your personal or professional life, go see a doctor. Chronic insomnia is easily curable and there is no reason to live with it or to torture a spouse with it.

This advice is directed at those who have a secondary sleep onset disorder and will likely not be helpful for primary disorders or for problems which occur after the onset of sleep. Primary disorders have an immediate cause which has to be fixed first such as a drug problem, nerve damage, or psychological trauma. Other sleeping problems, such as waking-up often, fitfulness, and non-restful sleep, require different treatments than those listed above.

Sleep well, my friend.

UCLA's advice
Dr. Orman's advice
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