If you’re lying in bed unable to sleep, the fastest thing you can do right now is stop trying. Effort is the enemy of sleep. The harder you push, the more alert your brain becomes. What actually works is redirecting your attention away from the goal of falling asleep and toward something that lets your body’s natural sleep drive take over. Below are specific techniques you can try tonight, plus longer-term fixes that make sleepless nights less frequent.
The Military Sleep Method
This technique was reportedly developed to help soldiers fall asleep in uncomfortable conditions. Proponents claim it can put you to sleep in two minutes after about six weeks of practice, though no formal studies have tested that specific claim. The steps work well as a starting point because they combine three proven relaxation strategies into one sequence.
Start by lying on your back with your eyes closed. Beginning at your forehead, mentally scan down through your body and consciously relax each area: your face, jaw, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, chest, stomach, thighs, calves, and feet. Give each part permission to go heavy and sink into the mattress. As you do this, slow your breathing. Inhale long, and exhale even longer. Once your body feels loose, picture yourself in a calming scene: floating in a canoe at sunset, sitting on a quiet beach, lying in a field watching clouds. Use all your senses. Feel the warmth, hear the water, smell the air. If a thought intrudes, gently return to the scene.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
If the military method feels too passive, progressive muscle relaxation gives you something more physical to focus on. Harvard Health recommends starting at your feet: curl your toes and arch your feet, hold for a few seconds to really feel the tension, then release and let your feet sink into the bed. Work your way up through your calves, thighs, buttocks, lower back, abdomen, upper back, shoulders, arms, hands, neck, jaw, and forehead. Tense each group, hold, release.
The key is paying close attention to the contrast between tension and relaxation. That contrast teaches your nervous system to recognize what “relaxed” actually feels like, which is useful because many people carry tension in their shoulders, jaw, or back without realizing it. Breathe softly throughout. Most people who stay with it will notice heaviness setting in before they reach their forehead.
Two Breathing Techniques That Work
Slow, controlled breathing activates the part of your nervous system responsible for rest. When your exhale is longer than your inhale, your heart rate drops and your body shifts out of alert mode. Two patterns are particularly effective for sleep.
The 4-7-8 technique, developed by Dr. Andrew Weil, is simple: inhale through your nose for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 7 seconds, exhale slowly through your mouth for 8 seconds. Repeat for four cycles. The long hold and exhale force your breathing to slow down in a way that’s hard to achieve by just telling yourself to “breathe deeply.”
If holding your breath feels uncomfortable, try a simpler pattern: inhale for 4 seconds, exhale for 6 to 8 seconds. No hold. The important part is that the exhale is longer than the inhale. Do this for two to three minutes while lying still.
The Cognitive Shuffle
Racing thoughts are the most common reason people can’t fall asleep, and telling yourself to “stop thinking” never works. The cognitive shuffle is a clever workaround. It fills your mind with random, meaningless images that prevent coherent worry without requiring real mental effort.
Pick a simple word, like “table.” Take the first letter, T, and think of random words that start with T: tiger, tulip, telescope, toast, train. For each word, briefly picture the object. Don’t analyze it or build a story. Just see it and move on. When you run out of T words (or lose track, which is a good sign), move to the next letter, A, and repeat. If you forget the original word entirely, that’s fine. You’re close to sleep. Start again with a new word if needed.
This works because your brain interprets random, unconnected imagery as a signal that nothing important is happening, which is essentially what the early stages of sleep look like. It’s much more effective than counting sheep because the images are varied enough to hold your attention away from anxious thoughts.
If You’ve Been Lying There 20 Minutes, Get Up
This feels counterintuitive, but it’s one of the most well-supported strategies in sleep medicine. If you’ve been in bed for roughly 15 to 20 minutes without falling asleep, get up and go to another room. Do something quiet and low-stimulation: read a physical book under dim light, listen to a calm podcast, fold laundry. Return to bed only when you feel genuinely sleepy, not just tired.
The reason this works is that your brain learns by association. If you spend hours lying awake in bed, your brain starts linking the bed with wakefulness and frustration. Getting up breaks that association. Over time, your bed becomes a stronger cue for sleep. This principle, called stimulus control, is a core component of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, the most effective long-term treatment for chronic sleep problems.
Set Up Your Room for Sleep
Your bedroom environment has a measurable effect on how quickly you fall asleep. The most important variable is temperature. Your core body temperature needs to drop slightly to initiate sleep, and a cool room helps that happen. The ideal range is 60 to 67°F (15 to 19°C). If that feels cold, use warm blankets. The point is that the air you’re breathing is cool.
A warm bath or shower one to two hours before bed can also help. It sounds paradoxical, but warming your skin causes blood vessels in your hands and feet to dilate, which rapidly pulls heat away from your core. University of Texas researchers found this process efficiently lowers core body temperature, priming your body for sleep.
Light matters too. The wavelengths emitted by phone screens, tablets, and LED bulbs (roughly 446 to 477 nanometers) are especially potent at suppressing melatonin, the hormone that signals your brain it’s time to sleep. If you can, avoid screens for 30 to 60 minutes before bed. If you can’t, use your phone’s night mode or keep the screen dim. Even the standby light on a TV or a bright alarm clock can interfere, so consider covering or removing sources of light in your room.
What About Melatonin?
Melatonin supplements can help, but they’re not sleeping pills. Melatonin signals to your brain that it’s nighttime. It’s most useful when your internal clock is off, like after travel across time zones or when your schedule has shifted. The NHS recommends a typical dose of 2mg taken one to two hours before your desired bedtime. For jet lag, 3mg at bedtime (no earlier than 8 p.m. and no later than 4 a.m. at your destination) for up to five days is standard.
More isn’t better. High doses can cause grogginess, headaches, and can actually disrupt your sleep cycle. If you’re using melatonin for general insomnia, it’s best used as a short-term tool, generally no longer than 13 weeks, while you build better sleep habits.
When Sleeplessness Becomes a Pattern
Everyone has occasional nights where sleep won’t come. That’s normal. But if you’re struggling to fall or stay asleep at least three nights per week, and it’s been going on for three months or longer, that meets the clinical threshold for insomnia disorder. At that point, the techniques above may help on individual nights, but they’re unlikely to resolve the underlying problem on their own.
The most effective treatment for chronic insomnia is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, a structured program that typically runs six to eight weeks. It combines the stimulus control and relaxation strategies described above with sleep restriction (temporarily limiting time in bed to consolidate sleep) and work on the anxious thought patterns that perpetuate the cycle. It outperforms medication in long-term studies because it addresses the root cause rather than masking the symptom.