In case you spend about 15 minutes to finally fall asleep every night, this means that you spend more than 90 hours each year on this “useless” activity. That’s like 10 working days spent in waiting. In case you have insomniac predispositions and you have to spend more than 60 minutes in your bed lying before falling asleep, this means that you have spent more than 45 working days on this useless activity last year. Who has so much time to waste?
Those interested in making a change should continue reading this article. We will provide detailed instructions on brain training that will help you fall asleep almost right away.
Bear in mind that you will have to Eliminate Caffeine from your Daily Diet!
Experts recommend the complete removal of caffeine from the diet for about 15 days before you start improving your sleep routine. Some of the foods and drinks that you should remove from the diet are:
- Coffee
- Yerba mate
- Caffeinated tea like white tea and green tea
- Healthline
- Colas
We strongly recommend that you get off all caffeine for at least 2 weeks before you attempt to improve your sleep habits. Common foods and beverages in your diet that you should avoid for better sleep include:
Just a single cup of coffee consumed early in the morning can ruin your body’s chances of normal falling asleep at night. In addition, you will show a tendency to wake up in the middle of the night and to sleep more stressfully. Finally, when you wake up you might feel that you are not energized and refreshed enough.
In case you are a great fan of caffeine, you should know that you can consume it once again when you finish the adaptation training. This practice might disrupt your sleep routine for a little bit, but when you develop this skill you will be able to fall asleep in less than half a minute even if you had a cup of coffee in the morning.
How to Train Your Brain to Fall Asleep Quickly
It is not unusual for people today to spend between 15 and 30 minutes falling asleep most the days. There are people who spend more than 30 minutes too. With the training, we will present all these people can fall asleep in less than 30 seconds, and in some cases, they fall asleep instantly.
Keep in mind that it is quite normal to have difficulties with your sleep routine when you are under a lot of pressure, but if you train your brain, you will still do this much faster.
This is not some kind of mental trick that will help you “fool” your brain. This is a complete brain workout that will make this process automatic after a while. It will take a blink of an eye to fall asleep.
What is this training process all about?
Before we share the details, it is good to mention that this is not a quick process. It will probably take months and in some cases years (it depends on your goals) to master it, but the good news is that this process is not complicated and it doesn’t require much effort. This training will not spend your time, it will actually save you time and the only thing that is required is being consistent in order to witness the results.
To start with, acknowledge the fact that every person can fall asleep quickly. You have probably been in a situation when you were mentally and physically exhausted and you have fallen asleep in less than a minute. It is also very likely that your head started to fall a little bit when you were watching a movie. In other words, if this is something that happened before, your brain has probably figured out how to fall asleep fast and by making similar conditions you can perform this again. All it takes is constant training.
Understand that the primary reason that you can’t fall asleep quickly is the fact that you have not spent some time on brain training. You should be able to achieve that, but you must start somewhere first. Just think about it – if you are training for a long period of time you will definitely be able to do 100 push-ups. But, if you are out of shape you probably won’t be able to do more than 5.
In case you are interested in developing this skill, you should look for a way to make the brain eliminate all other activities and focus on falling asleep when you wish to sleep. This is the basis of this concept.
The human brain is active all the time, even when we are sleeping and it works in different consciousness modes like beta (or waking, alpha, delta, and theta phases. So, when you are in your bed waiting to fall asleep, you are in a position where you are waiting between switching modes.
A brain that is not trained will use this period for something else. People usually turn and toss or focus on some thoughts during this period. This is what most people do. However, without proper incentives and support, the brain will be inefficient and lazy and the transition will belong.
While it is true that your conscious mind will gladly go to sleep, it is also true that during this period your conscious mind is not in control. It is the subconscious part of the brain that completes the transition. In case your subconscious mind is not interested in falling asleep instantly, your conscious mind will have to struggle to achieve that.
In most cases, the subconscious mind will come up with new ideas and thoughts which will keep the conscious mind busy and leave it no room for relaxation needed to fall asleep.
So, we are actually trying to train the subconscious part of our mind. We must make it obedient and quick. Once the conscious mind says that it is time to sleep, the subconscious triggers the sleep mode instantly. However, this is possible only in cases when you feel at least a little bit sleepy. In case the subconscious mind notices that it probably won’t process the request.
This process that we are about to share doesn’t leave room for slacking, so when we really think that it is time to sleep, this transition will happen without any problems.
This unique process includes the use of brief, timed naps that will train the brain to fall asleep fast.
This is how this training works:
In case you start feeling drowsy during the day, try to take a nap that will last for about 20 minutes. Keep in mind that the nap should last no more than 20 minutes. Set an alarm and go ahead. You can set an alarm on your smartphone and in just two clicks your timer will be set.
Start the timer from the moment you lie down on the bed or sofa. So those 20 minutes include the period of falling asleep and waking up too. The main point is to relax and fall asleep if you can. Don’t focus on doing something that is not natural. Even if you don’t fall asleep that’s completely fine. You can also sleep for just 2 or 3 minutes and that would be great too.
Once the 20 minutes are over, you should get up from the bed instantly. Don’t prolong this period. This is very important because you will probably want to continue sleeping. That’s why it is a good idea to place the alarm in a different part of the room, so you will have to stand up. Just, acknowledge the fact that the nap is finished and if you still feel sleepy, remember that you can take another quick nap after one hour.
According to many practitioners of this type of brain training, the best time to practice this process is during the day (if possible), but it is also good to do it in the evening just make sure that you are doing it for at least 60 minutes before you finally go to bed. If you want to practice this technique in the evening, do it after dinner because this is when people usually feel sleepy.
Keep in mind that it is not necessary to take these naps on a daily basis, but you should get a nap a few times a week if possible. You should try to have one nap a day on average.
The training process continues with the advice related to the use of alarms. It is crucial to wake up with the help of an alarm each morning. Just try to find the perfect time when you want to wake up, set your alarm in that period, and use it every day. Once the alarm is turned on, get out of your bed instantly, no matter how many hours you have slept during the night. Once again, you should not make any compromises.
When it comes to going to bed at night, try to go to bed at a period of the night that will make you keep sleeping the whole time so you can feel energetic in the morning. For instance, if you believe that a 7-hour sleep is sufficient to feel reenergized and rested, and you want to get up at 6 AM in the morning (every morning), you should go to bed at 11 PM. However, if it takes about 30 minutes or more to fall asleep, you are practically wasting the time you need to re-energize and rest. This is certainly a period of the day that is completely useless.
However, your brain will get the message you are sending. It will know that you have a limited amount of time to rest. You will have to wake up once the alarm goes off no matter what happens. In addition, even if you are having a nap, you will still get up after a certain period of time.
So, in case your brain needs to sleep, your brain must learn how to fall asleep quickly and get the most from this specific period of time. If the brain uses too much time to fall asleep, it uses real sleep and there is no way to compensate for this lack of sleep later.
If you go to bed at different periods of the night and you wake up whenever you want, your brain will become lazy and it won’t use this time efficiently. In case you use an alarm to wake up, but you have gone to bed earlier, it is fine to use some extra time to fall asleep because you are providing additional time for the brain to rest and reenergize.
Chocolate and coffee are definitely not good for this type of training. If you use these stimulants on a daily basis, the brain will seek these stimulants whenever it feels that it didn’t get enough sleep. It will also not worry when the time used for falling asleep is long.
If you eliminate these foods and drinks from the menu, your brain will realize that it must get quality sleep in order to get energy. It will find out that spending too much time falling asleep means losing actual sleep which ultimately means feeling sleepy and exhausted during the day.
With the removal of these stimulants and by waking up at the moment when the alarm goes off, your brain is left with only one solution. Eventually, your brain will acknowledge the fact that the only solution is to fall asleep faster and it will adjust the time needed to fall asleep (transition period) in order to get the rest it deserves.
In other words, we should stop giving our brain a message that continuous sleep is perfectly fine or that we can always use stimulants in case we are sleepy and start training our brain and help it understand that people have limited time used for this activity.
The human brain has evolved a lot in the last several thousand years. It knows how to use limited psychological resources to the maximum. So, if it understands that sleep is limited, it will find a way to optimize this activity in a similar way in which it learned how to use the sugar and oxygen to the maximum.
There is nothing wrong with feeling sleepy during the day especially if you didn’t get enough sleep at night. Feel free to take a nap. You can also take more than one nap a day if it is required, but always take these power naps that last no more than 20 minutes. In addition, don’t take the other nap until 60 minutes have passed.
When you develop a habit of having 20-minute naps, it is the best idea to limit the time for naps and reduce it to 15 or 10 minutes. There are people who have 5-minute naps and they can really make a huge difference, but this is possible only if the individual learns how to fall asleep fast.
Make sure that your brain understands that these naps that last for 20 minutes include the time needed to fall asleep and wake up too. In case your brain is preoccupied with some thoughts during this period, this means that it will get less sleep.
In addition, teach the brain that is that you have to wake up at the same time each morning and that if the brain wants to reenergize it needs to use this time to the maximum. If the brain wastes this time on activities that are not related to sleep, it actually ruins its own experience.
When you finally adapt your body and mind to this routine and you are prepared to fall asleep faster and when you really want to, you can ease the training – remove the alarm and wake up at any period of the morning. It is very likely that brain training will provide permanent results.
Feel free to add some caffeine back to your diet. However, those who were practicing this training say that people should be very careful in the first 2-3 months. This is the time when they must get up with an alarm at the same period of the day, take naps on a regular basis and completely eliminate caffeine.
In case you find these instructions difficult, you will definitely have a hard time falling asleep fast. If your brain feels that you are not making any problems, it will take advantage of the situation and it won’t figure out why it is good to fall asleep faster.
Every individual is different, so we cannot say how much time is required in order to train your brain. There are people who can feel the results even after a few weeks, but there are people who will have to follow this training for months. In addition, there are numerous factors that affect the final results and our eating habits are probably the most important ones.
Generally speaking, a healthier, natural diet will definitely help you make the adjustment in your sleeping routine.
Finally, regular physical activity can also encourage your brain to fall asleep faster.