How do you get back to sleep ??

I concentrate on a childhood walk I used to do with my Mum, and imagine it as best I can. I miss my Mum and I miss my home town so I enjoy doing this...... but I never get to my destination.

I always count, I will think of someone's birthday in the future and then count to it to work out what day of the week it is on - usually don't get there before I've fallen asleep.

Radio, tuned to something utterly boring and on a very low volume.

I choose a subject and go through the alphabet thinking of one for each letter. It can be flowers, cars, names, even cakes!

If picturing Donald Trump works for you, great, but I can't imagine that I could switch off my thoughts in the way you do if I was picturing that particular face.

Actually, I've tried all sorts to help me drop off, but still haven't found a method that routinely works for me.

Methods that involve using my brain, such as counting backwards, or going through the alphabet thinking of names that begin with each letter, don't work for me.
Quite the opposite - once my brain is involved in an activity like that, it goes into everdrive and won't switch off again!

I now listen to audio books when I go to bed, and often go to sleep listening to those although I switch it off if I feel myself starting to drift off.
Uunfortunately, though not surprisingly, the boring books ones are much more effective!

The trouble is, even though I set a timer for the audio to switch off after, say, thirty minutes, I often spend ages the next day trying to find the place in the book where I must have fallen asleep.
In fact, I don't know how it happened, but I once 'missed' about three hours of a story and didn't realize for several days.

If I wake up in the night for some reason, which I do most nights, I try to get back to sleep without the audiobook, but if I reach a point where I am tossing and turning and just can't switch my mind off again, I do now put it on again because if I don't, I know that I might still be awake several hours later.

I concentrate on breathing, in for 4 hold for 7 out for 8 it works like magic for me. It bores me to sleep i guess. ??

Grannybags I do that too, latest subject is GN user names. Fortunately I rarely have to use it, if I’ve been asleep for over seven hours, say it’s 6am, I just get up.

I use Pzizz. If I remember! Sometimes, like today, I forget. So I design my dream bedroom in my head and eventually that gets me off to sleep.

I fiten find that a quick shower works because it relaxes me.
I count downwards from 100.

If i cant get back to sleep within an hour I get up and just to jobs relating to my business until I feel tired again then I go back to bed. Being retired I can make my own timetable.

I do that as well Grannybags or try to make as many words as I can from a larger word. Fall back on going through every verse of Good King Wenceslas that usually works.

I’ve said this many time before when this subject comes up.
Many years ago I went to a sleep therapist.
It doesn’t matter what you see, count etc. The science is, that you keep to the same subject. This is because your training your brain. It learns ah, this is where I go to sleep
It’s not an instant fix, that’s why you have to keep concentrating
On one subject.
This is the reason lots of people fail because they give up after a week or 2?

Counting for me, picturing the orange one would give me nightmares

I often wake around 3am. I go to the loo (whether I need to or not) and mostly fall asleep again quite quickly. Occasionally, I have difficulty getting back to sleep and that's when I prop myself up in bed, switch on the bedside lamp and read a few pages of my book. The lamp is not very bright and is behind me so it illuminates the book but is not in my direct line of site and I start to feel sleepy again after 10-15 minutes. It works every time for me. Each to their own.

sight not "site"

I find the best way to get back to sleep is to recite poetry over and over to myself. My favourite is Wordsworth's Daffodils or the Shakespeare sonnet Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.
I never manage more than a couple of recitations before I'm asleep.

If you have an Echo device in your bedroom, I can also recommend
Music for sleep by Max Richter. I set a sleep timer for one hour, but I never hear the end.

I write a letter to someone! Not literally on paper, but compose it in my mind. Works a treat. I also find taking one or two deep breaths in and out very slowly, helps too.

I’m often awake during the night and then I start thinking about what I need to do for work, so I keep a notepad by my bed to jot down a ‘things to do’ list - then I often end up looking at the threads on GN for a while. As often as not sleep is so elusive that I end up going down and making a cup of tea - occasionally meeting my husband in the kitchen doing the same thing, which is always a happy coincidence.

Ah, thank you MerylStreep now I get it.
I do the alphabet thing which often works but change to other subjects.
Now I know the purpose I’ll stick to one subject.
Thank you

I go downstairs, make a cup of good old fashioned cocoa, take it back to bed and read my Kindle for a while.
I’m not saying it invariably works, but it beats the endless tossing and turning.

Wow, interesting or what....
Im glad i asked this question, so many interesting replies.
Far, far more enthralling than flippin DONALD TRUMP ...I mean - seriously!!!!!!

You made me laugh violetsky with THE ORANGE ONE hahahaha

Hey, each to their own, Serendipity. If sleeping with getting to sleep with DT works for you, stick with it .

I wonder if Melania sleeps well Serendipity staring at that face all night long. Like a Halloween pumpkin on the pillow

I don't need much sleep (never have) so I'm often wide awake with tea and toast at 4 am.

My friend, though, has big trouble 'getting back to sleep' as she's convinced that anything less than eight hours is unhealthy. She tries to settle for hours - what a waste of time!

I’ve had such spells, not sure why as it doesn’t happen all the time. When it does and I can’t get back to sleep after a short while, I just get up, go downstairs, tea and rich tea biscuits, check the papers, and I’m soon ready to go back to sleep.