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.

  • @Dabro
    10•9 months ago

    Lots of great advice here already, the only thing I’d add is 4-7-8 breathing. There are lots of guides and explanations online, but essentially you breath in for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 7 seconds, then exhale for 8 seconds.

    It takes practice before you can do it and stay relaxed at the same time, so I would suggest practicing during the daytime so when you do it at night it doesn’t fully wake you up. It took about a week of practice before I felt comfortable enough to feel the benefit, but I still use 4-7-8 breathing in lots of contexts four years later.

    I think the theory behind it is tied to vagus nerve and helping the body relax and enter rest and digest states.