Great Nighttime Traps for Rowdy Brains

Sleep isn't always easy. Some nights I can put on the mask and I'm gone. Other nights I have to work for sleep. Even meditation is hard. On those nights my brain will struggle for sleep like a 3 year old child on sugar cubes, I have Drake and Mumblebear to throw me on the fast stagecoach to sleepytown.

"Sleep With Me" is a podcast http://www.sleepwithmepodcast.com/ (16:40 Show starts; show ends 01:04:04) that features someone that is possibly the most boring voice you've ever heard. Topic threads are off topic and unraveled in discussions that simply wear out your brain. It is silly story stuff on the dull side of silly. The voice is somewhat gravely and irritating and as a result, my brain at least will tune in and out rather than concentrate too much. The stories are usually detailed with fogbanks again, working against your brain's attention and putting you to sleep.

"Nocturne" http://www.nocturnepodcast.org/ is a great bedtime story / nighttime essay podcast that claims to peer into the dusty corners of the night.

Mindfulness and more specifically, Mindful meditation can be a powerful art in reaching restful sleep. http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/mind ... 1502187726 I use calm.com for guided meditation and learned to meditate myself before sleep. There are others.

What sleep traps do you find helpful for rowdy brains?

I wish the "Good Sleep Chihuahua" was a real thing, but I'll still wish him "sleep tight pupper."

Falling asleep is not too difficult especially if I have a podcast. I've been using sleep with me about a month and I never make it past the first few minutes. It really helps me get BACK to sleep after my 4:30 wake up every night. Scooter tells listeners they are safe and it really helps me relax into sleep.

Janknitz wrote:Falling asleep is not too difficult especially if I have a podcast. I've been using sleep with me about a month and I never make it past the first few minutes. It really helps me get BACK to sleep after my 4:30 wake up every night. Scooter tells listeners they are safe and it really helps me relax into sleep.

Same here. I listen to sports podcasts and also never make it past the first few minutes.

My wife likes late night shows like AM Coast to Coast with George Noory (it used to be the great Art Bell). It's a lot of conspiracy stuff, aliens, crop circles etc. I think it's okay but the amount of commercials is INSANE.

I just stick with my relaxation mp3's I make with the free software editing program Audacity and free audio samples I get from the web. Mostly babbling brooks, birds singing, wind in the trees... that sort of stuff. It puts me in bliss-land very quickly. I use a Naxos CD player that has an SD slot so my mp3's play seamlessly all night in whatever order I like. You can get easy-to-use Audacity free at your favorite download places like CNET or:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/

Pzizz sounds like a caffeine laden beverage, but it is a sleepytime music software app that over 400K have used to relax, sleep and energize by using both the sleep and nap modes. I know this because the online testimonial said so on http://www.Pzizz.com. Pzizz uses something called binaural beats, defined as:

... an auditory illusion perceived when two different pure-tone sine waves, both with frequencies lower than 1500 Hz, with less than a 40 Hz difference between them, are presented to a listener dichotically, that is one through each ear.
Binaural beats - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beatsWikipedia

Okay, so but what is that, like stereo? Well my google kung-fu search-ology says that some are saying that binaural beats cause something called "resonant entrainment". Entrainment, in physics, is when two systems which oscillate at different frequencies independently are brought together, they will synchronize with one another, at whatever the combined system's resonant frequency is. So in theory one's brain waves will combine with the binaural beats.

But, does it help me calm my rowdy brain and sleep?

Well, if you want it to. A whole industry seems to have sprung up around the concept of binaural beats. I like the calming music. There are dire warnings on some of the offerings to avoid listening while driving, which seems reasonable if your objective is relaxation and sleep. For me, the tones remind me of getting a massage so I start really just want to have my back done. Your results may vary.

My husband left his radio on all night once and George Noory was on. He kept me up all night instead of putting me to sleep.

Stormynights wrote:My husband left his radio on all night once and George Noory was on. He kept me up all night instead of putting me to sleep.

It's the commercials. They scream for your attention.

No it was the show for me.

Stormynights wrote:No it was the show for me.

LOL - If you want to feel safe, (and who doesn't when you're planning to be unconscious?), Coast to Coast might not be the best thing to listen to. I used to listen when I had little babies to feed. That shadow people stuff gave me the willies and I really don't scare that easily.

I was reading today about a sinister children's book, The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep, that will magically (okay so it's a form of hypnosis, and behavioral trickery not magic) that will put put the kids to sleep when read aloud.

Author Carl-Johan Forssen Ehrlin, a Swedish behavioral psychologist, says he filled The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep with psychological reinforcement techniques to make young listeners doze off in minutes, the Independent reports. "These [techniques] are formed in a way to help the child relax, fall asleep faster and sleep calmer every night," Forssen Ehrlin says. "The tale gives suggestions to the child's unconscious mind to sleep." Not only does protagonist Roger The Rabbit encounter characters like Sleep Snail, Heavy-Eyed Owl, and Uncle Yawn, but parent-readers are instructed to yawn often and speak italicized words in a calm and slow manner, the Telegraph reports. Think it's bizarre? Well, it's the first self-published book to top Amazon's best-seller list.

http://www.newser.com/story/211442/chil ... k-out.html

Here's that book on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Rabbit-Wants-Asle ... 149617951X

I wonder if he believes all the stuff he talks about on his show. I do find it entertaining but not something I want to listen to when I am trying to go to sleep.

Sometimes all we need to do is re-calibrate. This is especially helpful when feeling a little anxious.

Don't know I stumbled upon this. Go to youtube and do a search on "ASMR Whispering". Soft and quiet whispering with props. Love it
My favorites is, "TheWaterWhispers". I much prefer the older versions.

Starlette

GettingBetter wrote:This is especially helpful when feeling a little anxious.

Dat clock is making me feel a little anxious.

Lucyhere +1

I have a very rowdy brain at night. I used to think about numbers and categories and relationships between them. My brain was (is?) like a border collie sometimes, it needs an agility race to keep it focused. I am sure sometimes I look like my brain might be a basset hound, not a border collie. Not many basset hounds on the agility circuit, like maybe none ever. So How do I maintain the looks like a basset on the outside and runs like a border collie on the inside and get some sleep at night?



I set up some fun games that have nothing to do with numbers or categories or relationships.

I read recently that thinking in pictures is good for creative conditioning. It will take me some time to remember where I read that, could have been a magazine at the Doctor's office or the beauty salon or maybe at lunch the other day with my friend I just over heard a conversation? Anyway it isn't important the source of where, but that I do think it works for me that I definitely think more creatively in pictures.

If I'm having a hard time getting to sleep, I will reverse engineer a painting, step by step and in pictures in my mind. It doesn't have to be my art, just how I would do it and problems I might run into. So I will look through a museum book from my nightstand and then put together the process to paint. I have to prepare my pallet, which can take a lot of time in real life for some artists. Choose and prepare the canvas with gesso.

I rarely get to the point that I paint with this exercise. Just walking through the process is tough.

I will also walk through a large building I know well sometimes, imagining each turn and the sounds.

Thinking in pictures will be different because interests and experiences are different and your knowledge may mean you can take a tour through the Taj Mahal before bed!