How to Make Your Brain STFU so You Can Sleep
This is a tough topic, many people have trouble falling asleep. In fact, most of the people I know have trouble falling asleep. I’ve found that this is particularly true of people who are constantly thinking. For whatever reason, they just can’t get their brains to shut off at night. It could be that they are running through their day in their minds, thinking about what tomorrow might be like, stressing out over an argument they’ve had or will have or just musing over a puzzle they haven’t been able to solve. Whatever the reason may be, it is tormenting. It’s a shame the brain doesn’t have an appropriate off switch.
This is actually the problem that I face most in trying to get to sleep. Most often I’m either musing over some philosophical question or I’m imagining some conversation I have had or might have. Even when that is not the case, I am plagued by phantom sounds. Often I’ll hear thumps, thuds, whistles, music and even my name being called. My sanity aside, one could imagine that this makes it quite difficult to fall asleep. As I’ve always been plagued by this condition, I’ve developed many methods to make my mind shut up so I can sleep. As I’m sure it might also help you, I’ll lay out the most successful method I’ve found thus far.
First, You must relax your body. Start by laying yourself in a relaxing position. You should be laying on your back with none of your limbs touching each other. Do not cross your legs or arms as this will interfere with the later steps. You also want your head supported fairly well and perhaps a pillow under your knees. The idea is to lay in a position that doesn’t put any stress on any one particular part of your body. While I realize this isn’t an ideal position to sleep in, you’ll probably move into a more comfortable pose when you’re asleep anyhow so don’t worry about it.
In order to get my body to relax, I find that it helps to first let it know what tension is. Tense up all your muscles as you inhale. Then, as you exhale, relax all those muscles completely. At this point, it helps to do some breathing exercises. You’ll want to breath in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, then breath out for seven seconds. With every time you exhale, you should try to relax your muscles further as if you were trying to be a rag doll. Do this as long as you feel it’s necessary; five to ten breaths are usually enough.
Now comes the fun stuff, we can start visualization. An important thing to note here is that when I say “visualize” I don’t mean that you should just see it, you should feel it as well. Engage as many of your senses as you can in these exercises, it will make it much more effective. It is also important that you not move during any of this. Physical movement will make it more difficult to fall asleep, you should stay as still as possible. It should also go without saying that you should have your eyes closed throughout all of this.
Imagine that your body is full of liquid. This liquid represents all your tension, stress and anxiety that is stored up in your muscles. Starting with your feet, visualize this water flowing out, draining from you. Feel it running out of you. You should feel some sort of sensation, perhaps a tingling, perhaps your feet will feel heavier. Whatever this sensation may be, hold onto it and let is spread. From your feet to your calves, this stress-liquid continues to flow. You should focus on every section of your body piece by piece from your feet and working your way up. It helps that once you get to your hips, you should start with your hands and “drain” your arms completely before moving on to your torso. Your head should be last in this process.
Next, you will want to give your mind something to do that is both mindless and engaging. Some count, but I find that this is too engaging and is far from mindless. What works best for me is to simply “stare” at the green and purple blobs that seem to flit across my vision when my eyes are closed. These are the result of random nerve signals propagating either across my retina or my brain… I’m not sure which one, but they’re kind of like a lava lamp. Focus hard on these blobs. They will grow, shrink, move and change color. At first, they will not look like much but eventually they should begin to take on more complex shapes. Usually they’ll start transforming into simple geometric shapes, then faces, then common objects like cars and buildings. What you’ll want to try to do is explore this pseudo-dream-world. What you’re doing here is entering a hypnogogic state. This is something like half-asleep dreaming as you’re trying to fall asleep. Chances are, if you can enter this state, you will quickly fall asleep.
This works for me like a charm, but you may find that other techniques work better for you. The importance is the structure of these techniques, not the techniques themselves. The order you should do them in is as follows:
- Get into a relaxing position
- Slow your breathing
- Relax your body
- Relax your mind
What you’re essentially doing here is taking the relaxation techniques from meditation and the induction visualizations from self-hypnosis to quiet your conscious mind and allow you to fall asleep. There are many other techniques out there, if this doesn’t work for you, there are many other visualizations you can try.
Other examples you might try instead of staring at the blobs in your vision would be imagining you are walking down a never-ending staircase with each step putting you deeper into sleep. This works pretty well, except for when you enter the hypnogogic state. I’ve found that this most often results in the stairs collapsing and my waking with a jolt. Another is to try imagining you are sinking into your bed as if you are leaving a hole shaped like your body as your bedsheets lower you into the ground, the further you go, the further you fall asleep. You might also try imagining yourself floating out of bed and to the ceiling. From there, you can explore the house or leave it to explore the world.
Hopefully, this can be of some use to you. If it is, I would certainly like to know. Also, if you have other techniques you use to quiet your mind and fall asleep fast, feel free to let me know in the comments below. Who knows, they might prove more effective for me than what I’m already doing.

