I'm 30 and just went through the most serious bout of insomnia in my life. It was nothing like the insomnia I read about or saw in media.
The crux of my insomnia was anxiety. I was dead tired and sleep deprived but as soon as I laid down my mind and heart would race. I couldn't convince myself to relax with any of the mind tricks in this thread. I would get so mad and frustrated that I would try to will myself to sleep, tossing and turning for hours. The thought of browsing my phone in bed or reading or anything else just made me more angry because I knew I was tired, why wouldn't my body sleep! The crazier part is that right now I'm furloughed, I have no real work or life obligations. I have no reason to be worried about going to sleep or waking up a certain time.
The solution ended up being kind of dumb and novel. I turned my bed into an adult rocking/shaking bassinet. I'll spare you the details but I basically attached one of those vibrating body massagers to the frame of my bed with a sleep timer. For some reason this relaxed me enough to consistently fall asleep in about 10 minutes every night.
(Also just a note: I tried all the other standard stuff. No alcohol, no caffeine, intense exercise, sleep hygiene etc etc)
What in tarnation, that sounds like a product idea. Maybe that works because the vibrations draw your attention in a multi-sensory way, forcing your racing thoughts to a halt. Maybe there’s also a Pavlovian response. Vibration = sleep
You should try it and see what you think. I thought of other fancier designs like using "bass kickers" or transducers as a more permanent solution. Honestly though I'm just happy that I found something to help me sleep. If you're willing to put in the time/effort to turn it into a product go for it.
The idea came to me as a coincidence. During my insomnia I came across this product [0] in a hacker news comment. I was so tired and delusional that I figured I'm basically just a cranky baby +150 lbs.
The crux of my insomnia was anxiety. I was dead tired and sleep deprived but as soon as I laid down my mind and heart would race. I couldn't convince myself to relax with any of the mind tricks in this thread. I would get so mad and frustrated that I would try to will myself to sleep, tossing and turning for hours. The thought of browsing my phone in bed or reading or anything else just made me more angry because I knew I was tired, why wouldn't my body sleep! The crazier part is that right now I'm furloughed, I have no real work or life obligations. I have no reason to be worried about going to sleep or waking up a certain time.
The solution ended up being kind of dumb and novel. I turned my bed into an adult rocking/shaking bassinet. I'll spare you the details but I basically attached one of those vibrating body massagers to the frame of my bed with a sleep timer. For some reason this relaxed me enough to consistently fall asleep in about 10 minutes every night.
(Also just a note: I tried all the other standard stuff. No alcohol, no caffeine, intense exercise, sleep hygiene etc etc)