Fastest fix for insomnia is to fall asleep.

Melatonin helps in the short run but long term hurts. Alcohol too lol. Develop a healthier bedtime routine and get enough exercise

Best “hack” I’ve heard is to NOT TRY to go to sleep. It is involuntary. It is not something you can will. The harder you try the further back it moves.

Instead, simply focus on creating an environment conducive to sleep (safe, warm, comfortable, etc.).

e.g. Try not to have an active going to bed ritual (such that a bunch of business abruptly ends with the expectation of sleep), but more of a “coming in for landing” ritual, where you need to do less and less until your mind decides it might as well sleep since there is nothing to do.

As most have said:

Underlying issues, sleep hygiene and doctor are all first port of call to check out. Some herbal remedies/melatonin can also help. For me sometimes taking a bath and having some lavender scent helped just in promoting calmness.

I haven’t seen much mention of mindfulness for sleep, and for me nothing has been as effective other than prescription sleeping pills.

Medito is a FOSS app, backed by meditation guides from universities.

https://medito.app/packs/2adEdsVRJwmU27G8

Body scan is a great first place to start, or try some of their “starting guides”. Meditation is a skill that needs time and practice, and sometimes you won’t be able to, but that just means you need to do something to reset your brain and try again.

They also have some sounds and sleep stories which are nice if you are into that sort of thing

Try sleeping it off

You should see a doctor.

What do you think about when you’re laid there trying to sleep? Grabbing a notepad and writing things down can help, even if you get into a loop and have to write stream of consciousness about how you’re writing about writing. Eventually the troublesome ones will rise and you can write about those.

Other tips:

1. Avoid caffeine at least three hours before bed.

2. If you can’t avoid screens before bed, install something on any device with a screen that changes the screen colour temperature in line with the daylight cycle where you are. Redshift is a common one on desktops.

3. Have a “no screens in the bedroom” rule regardless. The bedroom is for sleep. Possibly that other thing that people use beds for. You can dress and undress in there too. Do nothing else in there. (Except maybe the notepad thing.)

4. Have a consistent bedtime routine.

5. When you’re in bed, try holding your breath while your mind is racing. The aim is not to pass out, just to associate the stress of one thing with the stress of another. Then when you can’t hold on, breathe deep and relax. It will take a while for your breathing to normalise. Do this as necessary once it has.

6. I like to play an illogical little game with myself that my room is upside down and the more I relax and sink into the bed the less likely I’ll be to fall up off the bed towards the ceiling, that is now somehow the floor.

7. Search your brain for the off switch that says “I’ll think about this tomorrow when I’m better rested”.

8. If you’ve been in bed for an hour without sleep, get up. Drink water. Read. Paper, not screen. Write in that notepad. Sketch. Do a word search. Stay awake until you’ve at least been to the bathroom to excrete what you drank. No work or projects. Nothing taxing. Only distractions. Go back to bed and try again.

9. Drastic measures: If you’ve gotten up three or more times under the previous rule, think about staying up. Tell yourself that’s it, you’re going to power through the next 20 hours. If that’s a terrifying concept, maybe the option of hiding from it under the covers will work one way or the other.

10. Last resort: Medication. I have to admit that I’m currently on meds that, as a side-effect, do help me fall asleep, but all of the above helps in the middle of the night if I wake up with mind racing, and it used to help a lot before I was on these meds.

See a doctor but also look into valerian root or passionflower capsules to help.

The first two questions should be:

1. Do you have any health issue and if so is it treated?
2. What do you do in the evening before going to sleep?

Hard to give any suggestion without knowing that.

First thing to try is to get your sleep hygiene straight.

No screens for an hour before bed, get your room dark (no night lights, light-blocking windowshades, and cover the lights on any electronics in your room) and quiet (ear plugs can help in a pinch), quit caffeine, get some sunlight in the morning (optimally before 10:00 AM), get some physical activity during the day, don’t eat for a couple of hours before bed. It also couldn’t hurt to do some meditation before bed during that hour of no-screen time.

That meditation will probably particularly help if the reason for your insomnia is stress.

(And try not to be overwhelmed by the above list. Any one or two items in that list that you do will probably help quite a bit. And try to think of this as a “long game” of incremental improvement.)

If that all doesn’t work, you could try adding CBD maybe an hour or so before bed. Melatonin might be a tempting option, but be careful with it. Melatonin doesn’t stay in the bloodstream all that long, so melatonin supplements tend to be big doses in an effort to try to keep it in your bloodstream longer which… kinda works maybe, but not as well as you might hope. The result tends to be that you fall asleep quickly, wake up in like 4 hours unable to get back to sleep, and then are resistant to your body’s natural melatonin for a night or two. If you’re going to do melatonin, spend the extra money on time-release melatonin. The company “Life Extension” has a 750mcg 6-hour time release melatonin that is a good one to try if you do go that route.

I feel like wearing FL-41 amber tinted glasses in the evening has helped my sleep. Orange tinted ones like Blublockers would do the same.

All I can say is I have insomnia and it sucks. Last time I didn’t sleep for 5 nights in a row, and like 2 hours the 6th night.

I went to acupuncture and told them i had insomnia and i passed out for 14 hours

Melatonin is the fastest and easiest way. See a doctor and pick up a prescription. Depending on where you live you might be able to buy it over the counter at a chemist; where I lived you would have to be over fifty though so might have to ask a relative to help out.

Try to work on whatever problem is developing concurrent with the insomnia. Probably something else going on.