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?

I very rarely have trouble sleeping, but when I do, this is what I’ve always done since childhood and it hasn’t failed me yet.

I lay there, with my eyes closed, resist any temptation to look at my phone or do anything else, make myself as comfortable as possible wrapped up in blankets and pillows and whatever

And I just kind of direct my mind towards something pointless and let it wander down that rabbit hole

Maybe I’ll imagine sort of a bunch of swirling lights and colors and just kind of watch them, look for patterns, etc.

Or I’ll make up stories. I’m no author, but I’ll imagine myself as maybe a super hero, or an astronaut, or a wizard, or any of those sort of stock characters, and I imagine myself saving the world, or fighting a dragon, or boldly going where no man has gone before. These stories I’m making up aren’t deep, they’re a crappy universe full of plot holes and the kinds of characters an elementary schooler playing make-believe would come up with, because of course the superhero I’m imagining myself as can fly and has heat vision and wolverine claws and can turn invisible and has super strength and…

Or I just kind of think about simple things I enjoy. Places I could go hiking with my dog, date nights with my wife, meals I’d like to cook for friends, etc.

Whatever it is, I just kind of let my mind wander down that road, it takes my mind off of whatever was keeping me awake, and after I while my focus begins to falter and I just sort of slip into sleep from there.

I’m pretty sure this kind of falls under the category of some kind of meditation. My work once did a mandatory “wellness retreat” as a “training” thing I had to go to. One of the things we did was a guided meditation session, and that felt like the same sort of thing (but for people who are boring and lack the imagination to think of a scenario to meditate on by themselves, imagining myself flying an x-wing through an asteroid field beats the pants off of imagining I’m walking through a meadow to the beach or whatever that lady was having us imagine)

Sometimes a little background noise is helpful. I’m not personally too picky about what it is, I like trip hop music for this purpose, or forest sounds, or just random YouTube videos (not even necessarily anything relaxing, I’ve fallen asleep to some machinist YouTubers plenty of times and the sound of a mill, lathe, band saw, grinder, etc. isn’t exactly what I’d call soothing.

And when all else fails, I rub one out

Reading books or playing video games. If I have the energy then also working on projects.

Coom to weird porn for an hour and feel like shit afterwards, then take melatonin.

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.

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 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.

This is basically me every night. Unless I go to bed at 3am, I usually toss and turn for an hour or more. So, I listen to audiobooks. Nothing heavy, usually just sci-fi or fantasy. Basically cotton-candy for the mind. Unless I have a good lecture going, the Great Courses stuff is soothing. But, that usually distracts me enough that I finally fall asleep. I use a single ear bud in my right ear and set a sleep timer so that the book shuts off after a reasonable time. That usually gets me close enough to sleeping that I can finally get the rest of the way.

The only downside to this plan, is when you get a really good book, with a good reader and you start getting towards the end of the book. The temptation to go just one more chapter is hard to resist.

Read or take a dose of melatonin.

For me there is often a problem that causes to not be able to sleep, and I’ll try to solve that. Like being hungry, thirsty, radiator too warm, radiator not warm enough, I have some energy I need to get out, need to close the window, need to open the window. If nothing helps I get out of bed for a while and this makes me more tired after some time. I try to avoid scrolling because it just makes the time fly by without changing the circumstances or making me sleepy.

Melatonin and a 3mg THC gummy or two.

If it’s real bad, I’ll resolve to go clean up the garage. All of a sudden my body becomes too heavy to stand up and I’m immobile.

Listen to an audiobook. If my eyes are open I’m not falling asleep so laying there listening to a book works for me.

I personally like writing + D&D, so I’ll just do that in my head. Grab some character I like, throw them in some random moments, and then just kinda daydream about the little movie I’m making for myself. It helps a ton if I can keep focused

I would always struggle with falling asleep while trying to read dense scientific literature and journal articles. I’ve now learned to weaponize that to induce sleep.

I’ll get up and go to another room. Try to read or do something until I get sleepy and try again.