The plan was to knock off work early today and finish off bits and pieces like disassembling my desk, IT gear and monitors, final packing bits and Instead Ive had to sort out someone elses mess at work and have been on calls till allmost midnight Now Ive got all sorts of technical nonsense flying around my head and cannot sleep. Aaaaaaargh! (Sorry needed to rant - wifes not best pleased either). How do you switch off in such circumstances? It always seems to happen if Im working too close to bed time and I really need the sleep for an early start the following day and I really cant function on a few hours sleep Its like my brain picks just the right moment to piss me off! (All the acohol is already packed away by the removal company earlier as well, by the way!!) Rant over
I get this quite a bit (like now!) but have no solution sorry mate. I try and think about something really mundane which sometimes works! Good luck in the move though!
Tensing and then relaxing every single section of my body slowly one bit at a time, starting at my toes up to my head and back down again is very effective. Telling myself a bed time story I make up as I go along works too. Even better if I rope Will into telling me one. I can go from absolutely not sleepy at all to asleep within 5 minutes. Getting up and going for a wee, even if I don’t need one and then getting back in bed sometimes help. It’s like it resets bed time. Sometimes though, just accepting that sleep may not happen, realising that even just laying down and ‘relaxing’ is better than nothing and trying not to catastrophise not sleeping helps. Even with no sleep you will get through the next day (adrenaline helps) and it won’t be the end of the world. You'll probably actually be more tired the day after rather than the first morning.
There's a sleep thing on here that i put on (listen to) every now and again and it sends me straight off. Its free for a year then after that the sleep one is still free. https://balanceapp.com/referral-social Good luck with the move
This will sound daft but when your mind starts running wild with different thoughts then ask your thought a sensible question. It stops your mind over running slows it down so you can relax and fall to sleep. Try it, it works
My former employer gave us all the premium version of Headspace a few years ago, and have never bothered cancelling it after making me redundant, so I occasionally put that on. I find rain noise works well, but I used to occasionally like the sleep exercise things, where you follow instructions. Used to work a charm.
There's only one answer and you already know what it is. It's not a solution once you're already in that situation, but it will be for next time: stop work at a reasonable time.
I find that ASMR videos (on YouTube) really help me to shut my brain up in those situations - I don't get much in the way of "tingles" but the good ones are quite immersive and usually after 10 minutes of getting my hair cut or my eyes tested (again) I'm ready to nod off. I hope the move goes well. Bon courage!
Good luck with the move. Hope it goes seamlessly. Re sleep....bizarrely, what I do, in my head, is try to alphabetically, name Reds players ...or people whose surnames are the same as their Christian name - even more bizarrely, it works.
Actually [mention]Sopwith Camel [/mention]’s Under the Cosh thead sent me down a listening rabbit hole which did the trick eventually. Thanks everyone though I reckon there are a few techniques to try but I guess [mention]Jay [/mention] advice is probably the best. Nackered though
No but sounds like a good idea. Will look into it. Thanks. It seems to happen about once or twice a month so need some better way of dealing with it
I find that if I've had to work stupidly late, I still need a bit of 'down time' before trying to sleep, just to get my brain to switch off a bit. So, if I've finished work at 2am, spending half an hour watching TV or on the xBox makes it easier to fall asleep than going to bed straight away.