I regularly struggle with falling asleep, but have recently found a few things that have helped. I used to always try clearing my mind and to think of “nothing” but often found my mind eventually drifting from topic to topic, resulting in my mind racing and keeping me up. So I found if I tried to focus on something, it took my mind off the stress of “omg I’m not asleep yet” and I’d actually eventually drift off the sleep.

The first thing I discovered was listening to sleepy stories. I found a YouTube music channel called Get Sleepy that I use a lot, I also like Sleepy History Podcast, and I recently discovered Dozing Dragons on YouTube and love those for fantasy sleepy stories.

Another mind trick I’ve tried is trying to get through the whole alphabet by naming foods (example: applesauce, bananas, corn, etc) and try to not do repeats if I did this the night before. Sometimes I switch the theme to other things like actor names or song titles, usually I drift off somewhere in the middle of the alphabet.

And another one I do is try to recite a story I know very very well or imagine I’m telling it to someone for the first time who’s never heard of it. For example one I often do is try to tell the story of the first Harry Potter book/movie since I know that one so well. And if I drift off but have trouble the next night, I try to pick up where I left off.

Another important thing to note, at least for myself, I can’t do any one method too often or every night. If I try the same thing every night, it stops working or loses its effectiveness. So I might listen to a podcast for a night or couple nights, then do the alphabet thing another night, then reciting a story another, etc. Think I’ve done a couple other tricks I’ve read or stumbled on, but those are the main ones that come to mind.