Bad Night

I struggle with this, too. One thing I've found effective some of the time is "cognitive shuffling". This involves distracting and redirecting your mind by scrambling your thoughts, so that they're not following logical sequences - which is what your brain does naturally during the early stages of sleep.

One way to do this is to think of a word (eg "forest") and then to work through it, letter by letter, coming up with other words that begin with each letter - including creating mental images to go along with each word (or just recalling each word, if you can't visualise things).  

I learned about it in the book Self Care for Autistic People - 100+ Ways to Recharge, De-Stress and Unmask! .

If you feel like you'd benefit from having help with the process rather than just doing it all in your head, the author recommends the app mySleepButton (or others like it). 

I struggle with this, too. One thing I've found effective some of the time is "cognitive shuffling". This involves distracting and redirecting your mind by scrambling your thoughts, so that they're not following logical sequences - which is what your brain does naturally during the early stages of sleep.

One way to do this is to think of a word (eg "forest") and then to work through it, letter by letter, coming up with other words that begin with each letter - including creating mental images to go along with each word (or just recalling each word, if you can't visualise things).  

I learned about it in the book Self Care for Autistic People - 100+ Ways to Recharge, De-Stress and Unmask! .

If you feel like you'd benefit from having help with the process rather than just doing it all in your head, the author recommends the app mySleepButton (or others like it).