The trick to falling asleep

Be mildly bored

It’s one of life’s real cruelties. Having divided your time into umpteen slots, managed everything from toddler tantrums to C-suite strops and almost fallen asleep at the Garrick, your head finally connects with pillow and… nothing. Or, rather, everything everywhere all at once.

For the purposes of today’s newsletter, why this happens isn’t all that important — something to do with cortisol spikes, reduced distractions and an over-eager default mode network. What matters is what to do about it. The usual advice still applies: consistent schedule, right temperature, no phones — often works. Each to their own (or their own plus one).

I dabble in some of this and inevitably have some of my own foibles. I sleep with a fan on a timed setting, even during winter. To counter the drying effects, I use a humidifier. To ward against any buildup of mould, I turn on the dehumidifier during the day. My bedroom is effectively its own hydrologic cycle.

But for me, the absolute key to falling asleep is watching something (on a screen, set to the lowest brightness) that fires just the right amount of neurons in my brain. Too engaging and you may be tempted to fight sleep. Too tedious and the mind starts to wander.

A Goldilocks zone exists and it is something mildly interesting — just enough to occupy the mind as it enters shutdown mode.

Space

My first port of call is space. I acknowledge this sort of content is not for everyone, but consider this:

1. The point is that it shouldn’t be something you want to finish

2. The often monotone narration acts almost as a lullaby

3. There’s something inherently contemplative about space. The extraordinary distances, the meaning of time, the sheer slowness of it all (the speed of light is around 300,000 km/s which sounds sprightly but, in galactic terms, is painfully sluggish)

4. Worried about that admin task you have tomorrow or that dumb thing you said in 1993? Good news! Earth will be uninhabitable in around a billion years before being entirely swallowed up by the Sun as it begins its red giant phase.

Consequently, it has taken me three weeks to complete this 39-minute video. Which almost makes the speed of light seem fast.