I find I don’t have a problem getting to sleep at night. I pretty much stay awake until I ready to pass out. Sometimes that’s 11pm, other times it’s 2:30am. The kids basically enforce the concept of waking up at about the same time every day, at about 7am.

I count backward from a huuuuge number.

If I can’t sleep, it’s usually because I’m worried about something.

If I’m worried about something, it’s usually money.

If I’m worried about money, counting backward from a smaller number isn’t helpful because I can’t help mentally adding, “…would sure come in handy right about now.”

So: 1000 “…would sure come in handy right about now.” 999 “…would sure come in handy right about now.” 998 “…would sure come in handy right about now.”

Larger numbers aren’t prone to this treatment, so far.

Just wanted to point out that “Keep a regular bedtime” and “Go to bed when sleepy” are contradictory. The latter makes sense to me, as many things can affect when we feel sleepy.

Simple, I generally don’t beat it! Ha.

But I find setting a ‘wake time’ works well, if you set your body to wake the same time every day regardless of how much sleep you got, your body will form a pattern and eventually you should be able to sleep at a reasonable time.

when I have trouble falling asleep I do multiple digit arithmetic problems in my head, such as 678 x 492. I’m out before I know it…

In “Sleep Thieves” by Stanley Coren he recommends warm milk, and a warm bath for helping you sleep. Interestingly, he says also that aspirin helps increase the depth and quality of sleep. Great book btw, the central message is that people aren’t getting enough sleep and it messes them up. I find when I give myself a fully 8+ hours I’m a lot more effective. Having children taught me a lot about my response to sleep deprivation: irritability, reduced intelligence, clumsiness and a negative outlook on life. No caffeine within 6 hours of bedtime is a good rule, and I find avoiding coffee entirely helps for me. Also, having a formal meditation practice is a great help, though meditation shouldn’t be done in bed or as a direct means of getting to sleep, it’s a way to calm down, clear your head and identify the things that perhaps interfering with sleep.

I count backwards from 100 but spell out the numbers: o-n-e-h-u-n-d-r-e-d, n-i-n-zzz…

A kindly neurologist once recommended lying quietly in bed and thinking pleasant thoughts and/or remembering happy times. It’s worked for me.

As much as possible, I like to make my bedroom reserved only for sleeping. This means having minimal computer and electronics equipment there.

Winding down is important for me. So for a good half-hour before bed-time, I try not to do or think about work. Thinking about work definitely keeps me awake.

I find deep breathing excercises for a couple of minutes before bed really helpful - about.com has some useful ones under anxiety disorders, I think.

Also, when I can’t sleep, I try to turn it into a positive - I know I can cope a day or two with reduced sleep and it won’t physically harm me, so I try to let go of worrying and enjoy a few hours where I can lie in a comfortable place and think about things I don’t have time to in the day, like planning my memoirs or composing a poem. If I really need to sleep, I’ll try to remember all the people in my primary school (grade school in the states I think) class - names, what they looked like, where they sat etc.