If you’re lying awake right now, the most effective thing you can do is get out of bed. It sounds counterintuitive, but staying in bed while frustrated trains your brain to associate your bed with wakefulness. Give yourself about 15 to 20 minutes. If you’re not asleep by then, get up, go to another room, and do something quiet until you feel genuinely drowsy.
The 15-to-20-Minute Rule
This technique, called stimulus control, is one of the most studied strategies in sleep medicine. The idea is simple: your bed should only be a place where sleep happens. When you lie there scrolling your phone, worrying about tomorrow, or just staring at the ceiling, your brain starts linking the bed with being awake. Over time, this makes falling asleep even harder.
When you get up, move to a different room and pick a low-key activity. Good options include reading a physical book, doing a crossword puzzle, listening to soft music, writing, drawing, or meditating. Light television is fine as long as the content isn’t intense or stressful. The key is to avoid anything that gets your heart rate up or your mind buzzing. When you start to feel your eyelids get heavy, go back to bed. If sleep still doesn’t come within another 15 to 20 minutes, get up again and repeat.
Calm Your Body With Breathing
Controlled breathing is one of the fastest ways to shift your nervous system out of its alert, wired state and into a calmer mode. The 4-7-8 method is a good starting point: inhale through your nose for four counts, hold your breath for seven counts, then exhale slowly through your mouth for eight counts. The long exhale is what matters most. It activates the part of your nervous system responsible for slowing your heart rate and relaxing your muscles.
You don’t need to do this perfectly. Even a few rounds of slow, extended exhales will lower your resting tension. Try it while lying down with your eyes closed, and if your mind drifts to stressful thoughts, gently bring your focus back to the counting.
Relax Your Muscles From Toes to Forehead
Progressive muscle relaxation works by deliberately tensing and then releasing each muscle group in your body, starting at your feet and working upward. Curl your toes and arch your feet, hold the tension for a few seconds, then let them go completely. Feel the difference between tension and relaxation. Then move to your calves, thighs, buttocks, lower back, abdomen, upper back, shoulders, arms, hands, neck, jaw, and forehead.
This technique works because most people carry physical tension they don’t notice, especially in the jaw, shoulders, and lower back. By the time you reach your forehead, your body often feels noticeably heavier and more relaxed. Pair it with slow breathing for a stronger effect.
Quiet Racing Thoughts With a Mental Game
If your problem isn’t physical tension but a mind that won’t stop running, try a technique called the cognitive shuffle. It works by giving your brain just enough to do that it can’t loop on stressful thoughts, but the task is so boring it nudges you toward sleep.
Here’s how it works. Pick a neutral word with at least five letters, something like “GARDEN.” Take the first letter, G, and think of as many words as you can that start with G. For each word, briefly picture it: grapes, guitar, goat, glove. Don’t rush. Linger on each image for a few seconds. When you run out of G words or get bored, move to the next letter, A, and do the same thing. Most people don’t make it past the third or fourth letter before falling asleep. If you do finish the word, just pick a new one and start over.
This works because your brain can’t simultaneously generate random images and maintain a coherent worry narrative. The randomness signals to your brain that nothing important is happening, which is exactly the state you need to fall asleep.
Fix Your Light Exposure
Blue light from screens suppresses your body’s production of melatonin, the hormone that signals it’s time to sleep. The wavelengths most responsible fall between about 446 and 477 nanometers, which is the light emitted heavily by phone screens, tablets, and LED monitors. Research has shown that narrow-bandwidth blue LED light suppresses melatonin more effectively than standard white fluorescent lighting, meaning your phone in a dark room is particularly disruptive.
If you’ve been on your phone or laptop in the last hour, that’s likely contributing to your wakefulness right now. Put the screen away, or at minimum switch to a night mode that reduces blue light output. For the longer term, try to dim lights and avoid screens for at least 30 to 60 minutes before your target bedtime.
Check Your Room Temperature
Your body needs to drop its core temperature slightly to initiate sleep. A room that’s too warm interferes with this process. The recommended range for adults is 60 to 67°F (15 to 19°C), which feels cool to most people. If your room is warmer than that, crack a window, turn down the thermostat, or kick off a layer of blankets. For babies and toddlers, the ideal range is slightly higher, between 65 and 70°F.
Cool feet and hands can also make it harder to fall asleep, even in a cool room, because your extremities need good blood flow to release heat from your core. If your feet are cold, wearing light socks can actually help you fall asleep faster by improving that heat distribution.
What About Supplements
Magnesium is the most commonly recommended mineral for sleep support. The glycinate form is gentler on the stomach than other types. The recommended daily intake for adults is 310 to 320 mg for women and 400 to 420 mg for men, depending on age. Many people don’t get enough magnesium through diet alone, and low levels are associated with poorer sleep quality. You can also get magnesium from foods like pumpkin seeds, spinach, almonds, and dark chocolate.
Melatonin supplements can help if your sleep timing is off, such as after travel across time zones or when adjusting to a new schedule. They’re less effective for general insomnia caused by stress or anxiety. If you try melatonin, start with a low dose (0.5 to 1 mg) taken about 30 to 60 minutes before bed. Higher doses aren’t necessarily more effective and can leave you groggy the next morning.
When It Keeps Happening
An occasional sleepless night is normal and usually caused by stress, caffeine timing, or a disrupted routine. But if you’re struggling to fall or stay asleep at least three nights per week for three months or more, that meets the clinical threshold for chronic insomnia. At that point, the most effective treatment isn’t a pill. It’s cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, often called CBT-I, which combines the stimulus control and relaxation strategies described above with structured sleep scheduling and thought pattern work. It has a stronger long-term success rate than sleep medications and can be done in as few as four to six sessions, sometimes through online programs.