How to Make Yourself Tired: Practical Methods for People Who Cannot Fall Asleep

This article is for people who lie in bed wishing they could fall asleep. Not for people who are simply curious about sleep onset, but for people who genuinely struggle: who are tired but cannot sleep, or who feel wide awake at bedtime regardless of how their day went. These techniques come from cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), which is consistently shown in research to outperform sleep medications for long-term insomnia treatment.

Why Some People Cannot Fall Asleep Even When Tired

Insomnia, at its core, is a state of hyperarousal. The brain is too alert to allow sleep onset even when the body is physically tired. This hyperarousal can be physiological (elevated cortisol, elevated heart rate, racing thoughts) or behavioural (spending too much time in bed when not sleeping, associating bed with wakefulness).

Simply lying in the dark and hoping for sleep to arrive does not address hyperarousal. The techniques below work by either building genuine sleep pressure (adenosine accumulation) or reducing the arousal that is blocking sleep onset. The most effective approaches do both.

Sleep Restriction Therapy: The Counterintuitive Solution

Sleep restriction therapy is the single most evidence-supported component of CBT-I. It sounds backwards: if you are not sleeping enough, deliberately staying awake longer seems like the wrong direction. But the logic is sound.

Insomniacs typically spend many hours in bed not sleeping. This spreads thin sleep across a long window, reducing sleep efficiency (the proportion of time in bed actually spent asleep). Sleep restriction consolidates this by compressing the time in bed to match the actual sleep time, then gradually extending it as sleep efficiency improves.

How to apply it:

1. Determine your average actual sleep time over the past week (not time in bed, but hours actually asleep). If you spend 8 hours in bed but only sleep 5, your actual sleep time is 5 hours.
2. Set your allowable time in bed to match your actual sleep time, with a minimum of 5.5 hours. For example: if you need to wake at 6am, your bedtime would be 12:30am.
3. Do not go to bed before this time, regardless of how tired you feel. This builds genuine sleep pressure (adenosine accumulation) by keeping you awake longer.
4. When your sleep efficiency improves (you are sleeping for 85%+ of your time in bed for 5-7 consecutive nights), extend your time in bed by 15-30 minutes.
5. Repeat until you reach a time in bed that allows adequate sleep while maintaining good efficiency.

The first week is usually hard. By the end of week two, most people notice they are falling asleep faster and sleeping more continuously. This technique should ideally be done with the guidance of a healthcare provider or sleep therapist, particularly for people with bipolar disorder or seizure history.

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Stimulus Control: Train Your Brain to Associate Bed with Sleep

Stimulus control is the second pillar of CBT-I. The principle: your bed should be associated with sleep and sex only, not with wakefulness, worry, scrolling, watching shows, or lying awake staring at the ceiling.

Every minute you spend in bed not sleeping trains your brain to associate the bed with wakefulness. Over time, this association becomes conditioned: getting into bed activates alertness rather than sleepiness, because that is what the brain has learned to expect there.

Stimulus control rules:

• Only go to bed when you are genuinely sleepy (eyes heavy, struggling to keep them open), not just tired or wanting to rest.
• If you are in bed and cannot sleep within 20 minutes, get up and go to another room. Do something quiet and calm (reading a physical book, gentle stretching) until you feel genuinely sleepy, then return.
• Do not read in bed, watch anything in bed, use your phone in bed, or do any work in bed.
• Set a consistent wake time every day, including weekends. This is the anchor that regulates your circadian rhythm.

Temperature Manipulation

Core body temperature needs to drop by approximately 1-2 degrees Celsius for sleep onset to occur. The body naturally begins this cooling process in the evening, but it can be accelerated deliberately.

The warm bath trick: Taking a warm bath or shower 60-90 minutes before bed raises skin temperature, which draws blood to the extremities. When you get out, blood stays at the skin surface and heat dissipates rapidly, dropping core temperature faster than it would decline naturally. This accelerates sleep onset and has been shown in studies to reduce sleep latency by 10-15 minutes on average.

Cool room temperature: The ideal sleeping temperature for most adults is 16-19 degrees Celsius. A room that is too warm prevents the body temperature drop needed for deep sleep. Too cold is also disruptive. Erring slightly cool is generally better than sleeping warm for sleep quality.

Cooling your extremities: Wearing socks or keeping your feet uncovered has been studied in relation to sleep onset. Warm feet help draw heat from the core and facilitate the temperature drop. Some people who struggle with sleep find that keeping their feet warm (but not overheating the body) helps sleep onset.

The 4-7-8 Breathing Technique

Developed by Dr. Andrew Weil, the 4-7-8 breathing technique is a structured breathing pattern that activates the parasympathetic nervous system, reducing the physiological arousal that prevents sleep onset.

The method:

1. Exhale completely through your mouth.
2. Inhale quietly through your nose for a count of 4.
3. Hold your breath for a count of 7.
4. Exhale completely through your mouth for a count of 8.
5. Repeat 3-4 cycles.

The prolonged exhale (twice as long as the inhale) activates the vagus nerve and shifts the autonomic nervous system toward parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) dominance. Heart rate slows, cortisol drops, and the physical arousal that prevents sleep onset reduces. Some people find this technique produces noticeable relaxation within 1-2 minutes. Others need a week of regular practice before the effect becomes strong.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) involves systematically tensing and then releasing muscle groups throughout the body. The deliberate tensing phase makes the subsequent release more complete than passive relaxation would achieve, and it shifts attention away from anxious thoughts toward physical sensations.

Basic PMR sequence:

1. Start with your feet. Tense the muscles strongly for 5-10 seconds, then release completely for 20-30 seconds. Notice the difference in sensation.
2. Move to calves, then thighs, then abdomen, then hands, then forearms, then upper arms, then shoulders (shrug toward ears), then facial muscles (scrunch everything), then release each in the same pattern.
3. End with your whole body as relaxed as possible.

PMR typically takes 15-20 minutes when first learned and can reduce to 10-15 minutes with practice. Research consistently supports its effectiveness for reducing sleep latency in people with insomnia, particularly when physical tension is a component of their arousal.

The Cognitive Shuffle Method

The cognitive shuffle is a newer technique, developed by sleep researcher Luc Beaulieu-Bonneau. It works by disrupting the linear, problem-solving thinking that keeps insomniacs awake, and replacing it with the fragmented, loosely associated imagery that naturally accompanies the transition from wakefulness to sleep.

How to do it:

1. Choose a random, emotionally neutral word. "Butter," "sidewalk," "candle," anything ordinary.
2. Visualise an image associated with the first letter (B for butter: a butterfly, a balloon, a baker). Hold the image briefly, loosely.
3. Move to the next letter (U: an umbrella, an urn, an uncle). Again, hold it briefly without analysis.
4. Continue through the letters of the word, generating random, loosely connected images.
5. If your mind wanders to actual thoughts or problems, that is fine. Just return to the image sequence.

The cognitive shuffle works because it mimics the hypnagogic imagery that the brain naturally produces as it transitions to sleep. By voluntarily generating this type of non-linear, image-based thinking, you are essentially creating the mental conditions of pre-sleep rather than trying to force your analytical mind to shut off.

Darkness and Blue Light Elimination

Melatonin, the hormone that signals nighttime to the brain, is suppressed by light exposure, particularly short-wavelength (blue) light. This is a well-established mechanism. Exposure to screens, overhead lighting, and devices in the hour before bed delays melatonin onset, making you less tired at your intended bedtime.

Eliminating light exposure is not complicated but does require deliberate commitment:

• Dim overhead lights 1-2 hours before bed.
• Use blue-light filtering glasses or screen settings (night mode) if device use is unavoidable.
• Sleep in as dark a room as possible. Even small amounts of light (LED standby lights, streetlight through curtains) can disrupt sleep architecture.
• Use blackout curtains or a sleep mask.

What Does Not Work (and Why)

Several common strategies for dealing with sleeplessness are either ineffective or make the problem worse:

Watching TV to relax: Light exposure delays melatonin, and emotionally engaging content increases alertness. Falling asleep to the television trains the brain to associate audio-visual stimulation with sleep, which can create stimulus control problems.

Lying in bed trying harder: Sleep cannot be forced by effort. Trying harder to sleep increases arousal, which actively delays sleep onset. This is the "sleep effort paradox." Paradoxical intention (not trying to sleep at all) is sometimes more effective than active sleep attempts.

Alcohol as a sleep aid: Alcohol does help some people fall asleep faster. It also significantly disrupts sleep architecture (suppresses REM sleep) and causes fragmented sleep in the second half of the night. The net effect is worse sleep quality despite faster sleep onset.

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