I see people sleeping on concrete, in cramped plane seats etc How do y’all do it?
When you’re incredibly tired, anywhere is a good place to catch up on some sleep.
At some point you’re just so tired that comfort and time is much less of a factor, I mean I feel like I can fall asleep anyti
If you have the proper biological facilities and you’ve been up long enough, you can hardly stop it. Your mind slows to a crawl You’re a perception of things around you narrows to where you barely notice anything that’s not mission critical, and your consciousness just fades like someone slowly turning the dimmer down on a light bulb in a dark room.
I’m always tired. I don’t go to bed at a decent hour, my joints ache all the time, so I rarely sleep more than 90 minutes without waking up. I could go to sleep right now if my 8 year old wasn’t making a ruckus.
Have you ever done a sleep study for sleep apnea?
I use a cpap machine now. It helped tremendously but it doesn’t help my body pain.
This was a life changer for me. I had an AHI of 69. For those not familiar, AHI means Apnea-Hypopnea Index, which is an average count of “events” per hour. An event is either a complete blockage of respiration for 10s or more, or a drop of 30% or more in blood oxygen level.
After I got my CPAP, I went from sleeping 10-12h and not feeling rested ever, a literal zombie, to sleeping 7-8h regularly and feeling good.
I’ve had a hunch for a long time that people who grew up in a busy household with lots of family around are better equipped to ignore noise / light and be able to fall asleep easily. You should go wake them up and ask them.
That’s a good point.
From a large family, couldn’t sleep when I first moved out - too quiet.
I used to struggle to get to sleep and hated those who could do it anywhere. They’d say, “just clear your mind”, which wasn’t helpful. It could be other things, but I figured out that my mind was always busy, sometimes from stress, sometimes from excitement. For me, it’s extreme focus. Often, I’ll put my mind to work on a complicated problem I’m having at work or home. If I have nothing, my go to is to see how far I can get calculating the binary digits (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64…) or the Fibonacci sequence in my head. I don’t get very far and I’m out.
Be sufficiently tired.
Someone else told an anecdote about being in the Army, and they have it 100% on the nose. Be forced to wake up at 4am every day; start out with an hour of cardio, then spend the rest of the day being physically active; don’t be allowed to crawl into bed until some time between 8 and 10, depending on events you don’t control. Do this every day - excluding Sundays - for two months. I guarantee that, by the end, you will be able to fall asleep almost instantly the moment you are allowed to sit or lay down and know you’ve got at least 10 minutes until you have to move again.
Being old does the trick for me.
I think a lot of people who have that skill learned it while serving in one military or another. Infantry(wo)men either learn to grab what rest they can when they can… or they don’t work out as infantry(wo)men.
Between serving in 'nam and working a labor-intensive job with as much overtime as her could get, my dad could sleep anywhere. Sometimes so hard it took a phone or alarm to wake him up, and he’d be moving and talking before his brain even shifted into gear.
The secret is to accept some level of discomfort in whatever situation while attempting to secure a subconsciously safe-feeling location, and then your tired brain will do the rest of the work getting you to sleep.
I’ve fallen into a deep REM sleep right next to a diesel turbine once (wearing ear protection of course).
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Beats me, people saying “if you’re tired enough you can sleep anywhere”, making me laugh my exhausted ass off (and feel jealous af, but can’t really hold it against them).
I’ve spent more nights than I can count laid in bed for hours, absolutely shattered, wanting nothing but sleep, and none has come. Then when I do finally fall asleep, it isn’t for long or of any decent quality (as in EtraordinaryJoe’s case - chronic pain will do that to you), so I’m still always tired, and yet still unable to just fall asleep.
My trick to getting to sleep at night is weed and a meal, to help induce food coma, which again, isn’t quality sleep, but it’s better than nothing…
I have 0 merit in this. I just… can. I always could, apparently. My parents organized dance competitions when I was a baby; they used to make me sleep in the DJ’s booth as it was the quietest-ish place in the venue. I slept through all of those like a (literal) baby. I don’t know why or how.
I also didn’t know how people did it. Then I had a baby and almost fell asleep in the shower once while standing. I’ve never been more tired in my life but man, these few months of just being able to fall asleep at meteoric speed anywhere anytime were incredible. It felt like a superpower from one of those pill memes. Now I am just tired all the time but I can’t fall asleep like that anymore.
Best I can do is sleep sitting upright. In my office chair, road trips, on the couch. You name it.
The secret, just be tired AF and sleep deprived. I don’t sleep well at night. I’m exhausted after work. I usually need a nap midday, but can’t take one if I’m working. By the time I get home, I’ll pass out in my chair for a bit.
I would look to get that checked out. If you need to have a nap in the middle of the day and have trouble sleeping, I would look to have a sleep test to see if you have sleep apnea.
My wife does it with her superpower, Hypersomnia.
Relax, close your eyes, fall asleep. Not much to it other than making sure you’re not in a position where your arm will fall asleep or neck gets cramped. There’s no secret to it, you just go to sleep.
Most people are able to do this. Some have an on/off switch that stays jammed in the on position most of the time.
I feel extremely lucky to fall asleep in 5 minutes very regularly. It takes my wife a few hours to fall asleep, we’re polar opposites in that aspect. Maybe it’s genetic, my grandpa and father both fell asleep quite easily.
