If you’ve been lying in bed for more than 15 or 20 minutes without falling asleep, the single most effective thing you can do is get up. It sounds counterintuitive, but staying in bed while awake trains your brain to associate your bed with frustration rather than sleep. Beyond that first step, several proven techniques can quiet your mind and body enough to let sleep happen naturally.
Get Out of Bed After 15 to 20 Minutes
Stanford’s Sleep Health and Insomnia Program recommends leaving your bed if you haven’t fallen asleep (or back to sleep) within 15 to 20 minutes. Go to another room and do something low-key: read a book, listen to soft music, do a crossword puzzle, draw, or watch something light on TV. The goal is to break the cycle of lying awake and stewing. When you start feeling drowsy, go back to bed. If sleep doesn’t come again within that same window, get up and repeat.
This approach, called stimulus control, is one of the core tools in cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. It works by rebuilding the mental connection between your bed and actual sleep, so over time your body learns that getting into bed means it’s time to shut down.
Slow Your Breathing Down
When you can’t sleep, your nervous system is often stuck in alert mode. Controlled breathing flips the switch from your body’s stress response to its calming system, the parasympathetic nervous system. The 4-7-8 method is one of the simplest ways to do this:
- Inhale through your nose for 4 counts.
- Hold your breath for 7 counts.
- Exhale slowly through your mouth for 8 counts.
Repeat this cycle three or four times. The long exhale is the key part. It forces your heart rate down and signals to your body that there’s no threat to stay alert for. You don’t need to count perfectly or stress about the timing. Just make the exhale noticeably longer than the inhale.
Give Your Mind Something Boring to Do
One reason you can’t fall asleep is that your brain is running through worries, plans, or replays of the day. These kinds of thoughts keep you mentally alert because your brain treats them as problems to solve. The trick is replacing them with something so mundane that your brain gives up and drifts off.
A technique called cognitive shuffling does exactly this. Pick a random, emotionally neutral word, like “cake.” Take the first letter (C) and visualize as many objects as you can that start with it: car, carrot, cottage, candle, curtain. Picture each one clearly before moving to the next. When you run out of C words, move to the second letter (A) and repeat. The key is choosing neutral categories, things you’d find in a supermarket, animals, household objects. Avoid topics like work or politics that could stir up emotions and make you more alert.
This works because it mimics the random, loosely connected thinking that naturally happens at the boundary between waking and sleep. You’re essentially tricking your brain into the mental pattern it uses right before drifting off, while simultaneously blocking the analytical thoughts that were keeping you awake.
Relax Your Body From Head to Toe
Physical tension you don’t even notice can keep you awake. Progressive muscle relaxation, a method recommended by Harvard Health, works by deliberately tensing and then releasing each muscle group so you can feel the difference between tension and relaxation. Start at your feet: curl your toes and arch your feet, hold briefly, then release. Move slowly upward through your calves, thighs, lower back, abdomen, shoulders, arms, hands, neck, jaw, and forehead. Breathe softly the whole time.
A shorter version of this is sometimes called the military sleep method. Lie on your back, close your eyes, and mentally move from your forehead down to your toes, consciously giving each body part permission to go heavy and slack. Don’t rush it. Spend a few seconds on each area. Many people fall asleep before they reach their feet.
Check Your Room Temperature
Your body needs to cool down slightly to fall asleep, and a room that’s too warm is one of the most common, fixable obstacles. The ideal bedroom temperature for adults is 60 to 67°F (15 to 19°C). If you don’t have a thermostat, crack a window, use a fan, or switch to lighter bedding. For babies and toddlers, the range is a bit higher, 65 to 70°F.
If your feet are cold, wearing socks can actually help. Warm extremities cause the blood vessels there to open up, which helps your core body temperature drop faster, the opposite of what you’d expect.
Put Your Phone Away
Screens emit blue-spectrum light that suppresses your body’s natural production of the hormone that makes you sleepy. Harvard Health recommends avoiding bright screens two to three hours before bed. If you’re already in bed scrolling because you can’t sleep, the screen is actively making the problem worse.
If you need your phone for an alarm, set it face down or switch to a red-tinted night mode. Better yet, use a standalone alarm clock so your phone can charge in another room entirely. The temptation to check notifications or open social media “for just a minute” is one of the most reliable ways to push sleep further away.
What About Melatonin and Supplements?
Melatonin can help with sleep timing, but it’s not a sedative. It works best when taken 30 minutes to 2 hours before your intended bedtime, not after you’ve already been lying awake for an hour. The standard adult dose is 2 mg in a slow-release form. Many over-the-counter products contain 5 or 10 mg, which is more than most people need and can cause grogginess the next day.
Magnesium glycinate is widely marketed for sleep and relaxation, but the evidence in humans is limited. It hasn’t been proven to directly improve sleep quality. That said, many adults don’t get enough magnesium overall (the recommended daily amount is 310 to 420 mg depending on age and sex), and correcting a deficiency may indirectly help with relaxation. It’s unlikely to cause harm at normal doses, but it’s also not a reliable fix for a night when sleep won’t come.
When Sleepless Nights Become a Pattern
A bad night here and there is normal. But if you’re struggling to fall or stay asleep at least three nights a week and it’s been going on for three months or longer, that meets the clinical threshold for chronic insomnia. At that point, the occasional breathing exercise or supplement isn’t going to solve the underlying issue. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is the most effective long-term treatment, more effective than sleep medications in most studies, and it typically takes four to eight sessions to see lasting improvement.