How to fall asleep fast: 7 techniques that actually help

Why can't I just fall asleep?

Falling asleep is a process of letting go, not something you do. Your heart rate slows, your muscles soften and your thoughts drift from logical to dreamlike. Anything that keeps you alert interrupts that slide: tension, a racing heart, a to-do list, or the pressure of "I must sleep now". The techniques below work by removing those interruptions.

1. Slow breathing with a long exhale

Slowing your breath to about six breaths a minute shifts your nervous system towards rest. A 2018 review in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience linked slow breathing with a calmer heart rate, more relaxation and less anxiety. The key is the exhale: make it longer than the inhale.

1. Lie on your back or side, one hand on your belly.
2. Breathe in through your nose for 4, feeling the belly rise.
3. Breathe out slowly for 6 to 8, like fogging a mirror.
4. Repeat for 3 to 5 minutes. If counting feels effortful, just keep the exhale long.

Prefer a guide? Use our 4-7-8 breathing timer or the box breathing timer. In the Mentis app, "Hand On Belly, Three Slow Breaths" is a 1-minute version.

2. Cognitive shuffling

Pick a random word like "BREAD". For each letter, think of unrelated words and picture each one for a few seconds: B for balloon, bicycle, banana, then R for river, rocket. The aim is to give your mind images that don't connect into a story, a bit like the jumbled thoughts that come just before sleep. Research by Harvey and Payne found that imagery-based distraction helped people with insomnia fall asleep faster than general distraction.

3. Write tomorrow down

In a 2018 study at Baylor University, people who spent five minutes writing a to-do list before bed fell asleep about nine minutes faster than those who wrote about tasks they'd already done. The more specific the list, the faster they fell asleep. Unfinished tasks keep the brain on watch. Writing them down tells it the job is held somewhere safe.

4. Relax your body, part by part

Progressive relaxation means briefly tensing, then releasing, each muscle group from your toes up to your face. Spend extra time on the jaw, tongue, forehead and shoulders, which hold the most tension at the end of a long day. The popular "military method" is a short version: relax the face, drop the shoulders, let your arms go heavy, breathe out, and picture a calm scene for 10 seconds.

5. Use the cool-down

Your core body temperature drops as you fall asleep. A warm shower or bath 1 to 2 hours before bed brings blood to your skin, and the cool-down afterwards helps you get drowsy. A 2019 review of 17 studies found it helped people fall asleep faster, with the best timing about 90 minutes before bed. Keep the room cool, and a fan helps in the Indian summer. Mentis has this as an activity: "Try A Warm Shower Before Bed".

6. Try to stay awake

It sounds backwards, but it works for some people. Lie in bed with your eyes open in the dark and gently try to stay awake, without screens. Called paradoxical intention, it takes away the pressure to sleep. In a study by Broomfield and Espie, it reduced sleep effort and the worry about falling asleep. The Sleep plan has an activity called "Try To Stay Awake" for exactly this.

7. Get up if it isn't working

If you've been awake for what feels like 20 minutes, get out of bed. Sit somewhere dim and do something calm until your eyes feel heavy, then return. This is part of stimulus control, the core of the techniques sleep researchers recommend first. It feels like it costs you sleep. Over a week, it makes falling asleep in bed much faster.

MimiQuick check: is your phone within reach right now? Let's move it across the room tonight.

What stops you from falling asleep fast?

• Clock-watching. Every check sparks a calculation and a little panic. Turn the clock around. Mentis calls this "Hide The Clock".
• Scrolling in bed. The content keeps your mind alert even more than the light does. See phones before bed.
• Late caffeine. Chai or coffee after about 2pm can still be in your system at bedtime. See caffeine and sleep.
• Going to bed before you're sleepy. Lying down early "to get more sleep" often means more time awake in bed.
• Thinking in bed. If your mind won't stop, read how to stop overthinking at night.

How do I make falling asleep easy every night?

Quick techniques help on any one night. Falling asleep easily on most nights comes from a steady body clock. That means getting up at the same time every day, getting daylight in the morning and winding down in the last hour. The sleep schedule guide walks you through it. The Deep Sleep Reset plan builds it one chapter at a time, and you can find your ideal bedtime with the sleep calculator.