My lifehack here was very different. When I had quite serious insomnia, I used to do slightly more challenging things before bed - read dense non-fiction, do puzzles or practice foreign languages - but nothing really helped - my mind was still too active.
But one day, I picked up a copy of an easy-reading 1970s fantasy novel in a youth hostel, and, having run out of other reading material, decided to read that before bed.
Unexpectedly, it worked wonders! Perhaps it got my brain in an appropriately dreamlike state, or maybe it's just because that's what I did as a child to sleep. Either way, I'm still doing it today - I always have two books by my bedside, one something "serious", and one for sleep.
if I think about a (math/conceptual) problem going to sleep I will enter a state of semi-consciousness without sleeping where I just get into a weird trance state on the problem. need this but for non-problem things. stories? rhyming poems? maybe make the problems smaller?
I do the same thing! Peter Winkler has a great book of puzzles which I use. Would recommend if you ever want more puzzles!
My lifehack here was very different. When I had quite serious insomnia, I used to do slightly more challenging things before bed - read dense non-fiction, do puzzles or practice foreign languages - but nothing really helped - my mind was still too active.
But one day, I picked up a copy of an easy-reading 1970s fantasy novel in a youth hostel, and, having run out of other reading material, decided to read that before bed.
Unexpectedly, it worked wonders! Perhaps it got my brain in an appropriately dreamlike state, or maybe it's just because that's what I did as a child to sleep. Either way, I'm still doing it today - I always have two books by my bedside, one something "serious", and one for sleep.
I tried to test it and ended up falling asleep at 5pm
if I think about a (math/conceptual) problem going to sleep I will enter a state of semi-consciousness without sleeping where I just get into a weird trance state on the problem. need this but for non-problem things. stories? rhyming poems? maybe make the problems smaller?