Hey there!

Here I am... again. With my warm milk with honey fighting against the upcoming panic in the middle of the night.

Why am I in panic about the fact that I am not asleep yet? From a logical point of view it is useless to be upset about sleeping. Being upset about something is the exact opposite of the state you want to be in before going to bed.

But why am I constantly reminded of the things that I have to do tomorrow (or the day after tomorrow, or on some day at the end of the month?) while trying to sleep? As a child I just started dreaming. Or at least, that is how I recall it. I went to bed and thought about nothing and everything, let my thoughts flow. Why am I unable to do that as an adult?

And, following the question... will I fall asleep when I just try harder? To me sleep just comes naturally. There is nothing I can do to fall asleep. No music, no tea before bed, no lavender oil. It does not matter if there is a storm outside or noise insight (as long as there are no smashing doors), I can watch TV or use the computer right before bed time. It does not matter how much coffee or black tea I drink. Or at least it didn't matter...
The first day without sleep, I felt tired. It was about a month ago. I do not recall, which exact date it was. I did not thought about it that much. Sometimes I just wake up and cannot sleep anymore, other days I would stay awake reading for hours. It was nothing special, at least up to this specific first day. In the second night I thought I would be so tired, that I would fall asleep easily. But nothing happened. I just stared at the ceiling of my bedroom.
And then I tried. The following days I read guides about sleep routines, caffeine levels and other things I never cared about. I tried so hard to fell asleep. I ate healthy, exercised (both not to late in the evening, of course). I felt as if I did everything perfectly, that the internet told me to do. But nothing happened.

Well, that is not completely true: Looking back now, something happened. Whenever I slept relatively well, I believed that the reason must be found in this whole sleep routine. But as I now think of it, during another sleepless night where I did all steps of my sleep routine in perfect order: No. It just won't work. I cannot force myself to sleep. This is not exercising where just wanting to do something wil take me further. This is different.

tl;dr: I wonder, what changed from before having severe troubles with sleeping and now. I realized that I cannot force myself to fall asleep. But I still do not know what to do.

Thanks for reading, if you have made it that far. I hope that there are not too many mistakes in grammar and spelling... it is too late right now. (And while writing I felt somehow reminded of the beginning of Fight Club.)

Hi there!
I was stuck in the same train of tought a few days ago. You're not alone having troubles keeping your mind still enough to fall asleep :)
I kind of found solutions that you might try out, but they are absolutely not scientific or anything :)
Keep up with the eating healthy and the sport. Maybe it doesn't positively affect your sleeping health, but it doesn't hurt to do it! There are many other good side effects to it.
I too can't force myself to sleep. But I know that if I do productive things (like working on my hobbies), I tend to be more sleepy than if I'm procrastinating. So I try working a bit when I feel that I really need to sleep.
If my toughts get randomly carried to unpleasant things like deadlines, I try to calm down, lay still and picture a soothing scene in my mind (usually an oak, don't know why) and ask myself specific but positive questions (like which kind of green are the leaves, or if there are some fairies at the top). It kind of trains my mind to overlook negativity, and it's easier with practice.
Otherwise if I'm really restless, I imagine my negative tought as black liquid, gather it all at the same place of my body (like hand or head), and imagine it flowing far away.
So those were the tips I invented for myself, I hope they can be useful to you too.
If they are not, know that you're not alone and you can come here to talk, there'll always be someone :)

Kisses, and don't forget that Morphée is a friend of yours!