I wake up at 3am to 4am daily as a neighbor makes noise walking their dog. This cannot be helped. Once I am awake, my mind won’t stop going over details about everything from the mundane to the critical. Often, I am able to fall asleep again after three or more hours of wakefulness, but only minutes before I have to wake for the day.

Does anyone have success with quieting the mind without substances so that they can fall back to sleep?

Edit: I want to thank you all for the helpful comments. I’m reading through them now and wioo be internalizing some of the suggestions.

To provide more context for those who asked:

I do have ADHD and OCD and Anxiety.
I sleep with a fan and a white noise track (10hrs of non-repeating noise I d/l’d with newpipe). My apartment building has a fire escape that the neighbor uses as their front door. This path means using a heavy steel door on a power hinge. (Slam!) The door is against the wall that my headboard is on. They have every right to use whichever door they like, and I don’t know them well enough yet to ask them to change for me. They are trying to be as quiet as they can, other than using the loudest path possible. They seem very nice, and their dog is quiet and well trained.
I’m in the middle of a long period of unemployment and I am beginning to worry about finances, as my savings are about half gone in a year.

Thanks again for all the suggestions! I’ll report back with my results in a few days.

  • Stalinwolf
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    You’re experiencing the exact same problem as my wife, in the same time frame, but for her it’s the neighbor slamming his door on his way out to work.

    I can’t speak for her, as she often just gets up after her mind begins cycling through anything and everything, but as someone who has a lot of difficulty falling asleep, I have some success with the following:

    1. Massaging my neck, shoulders, and shoulderblades
    2. Getting up and sitting in the dark of a different environment for a few minutes, like the living room or guest bed, then returning to bed
    3. Alternating between trying to sleep flat on my back and on my stomach