When we lay down at night why our brain does not recognize it and make us fall asleep much easier? Interesting that we have control over so much things but not our own body.
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you can, its why having a rhythm is so important. if you have a certain ritual before you go to sleep, that signals your brain its time to go sleep. for example, drinking a glass of water while reading the news paper in a dimly lit room for 30 minutes and then brushing your teeth and going to bed will signal your brain that its sleepy time ones it becomes a rhythm. same thing with lowering blue light during the evening more and more until its bedtime.
I don’t think it is good to fall asleep every time you just lay down, that wouldn’t be a very wise choice evolutionary wise with predators and all. But yeah, would be nice if you can find an offswitch somewhere
We kind of can, bit it isn’t an instant thing. More like turning off the oven and waiting for it to cool down. We need to dim the lights, stop drinking caffeine (like 6+ hours prior), avoid blue lit screens, not try to solve problems, not be over-stimulated, not get under the covers where we also eat, work, play, and generally act very awake… There are other things that factor into it.
Why isn’t it on/off? What benefit would that be? If there are stimulating things around–light, predators, invaders–then being able to turn off in the midst of that would surely be used enough to be selected against, so the trait would die out pretty quickly.
There actually kind of is a way to do this. It’s a technique developed by the US military, mainly for fighter pilots, to be able to sleep under any conditions, even during gunfire. It involves intentionally relaxing every muscle in your body one by one and keeping your mind clear by repeating a word in your head like “sleep” or something similar.
If you have any tensed muscles or you’re mentally stimulating yourself by thinking about what you’re going to do tomorrow or that embarrassing thing you did as a kid, you’re just not going to get to sleep, it’s as simple as that.
This technique works by essentially tricking your brain into thinking you’re already asleep by emulating sleep, of that makes any sense. It takes about 6 weeks to really master, and the goal is for it to work in about 2 minutes.
Rather than an on/off switch, a better analogy is like valve. Certain chemicals need time to circulate your brain in order to inhibit the brains activity.
If it were like a dam where you flipped a switch and just flooded your whole brain all at once you would likely die, so it’s more like a slow release mechanism of small pipes.
I mean you sort of can, there are techniques the military even uses them, to train your body/brain into falling asleep very quickly.
You can, but it’s not an on/off reaction. There are a lot of external cues and internal processes that influence how awake or tired we feel. Lying down in the dark is one small cue for the brain, while there are many other cues that we can implement and control.
The external cues are referred to in chronobiology (the study of timing in living organisms) as “zeitgebers” (German, coined by the scientist Jürgen Aschoff) or “time givers” (translated to English). Our bodies have a general rhythm to them called the circadian rhythm. External factors such as light, eating, exercise, and temperature can impact the rhythm throughout the day and night, as the circadian rhythm is approximately 24 hours for humans. Parts of the brain also respond to these external cues by producing or reducing different hormones. Melatonin is the most well-known hormone related to sleepiness, and it is released to help us feel tired. The timing of its release is influenced by internal biology and the zeitgebers, with light being an important factor; melatonin is released more readily when we see darkness and is not released when we see light. The hormone release is linked to light hitting our eyes, which is why closing our eyes and using eye masks can help us get ready for sleep (and why staring at a screen, which produces light, can make us feel less tired).
Sleep hygiene and bedtime routines are ways that we can signal to our body that we want to get ready to fall asleep. These routines use external cues linked to the zeitgebers to help prepare the body and brain for sleep. Making the room dim and cool, limiting bluewave light (which includes natural light like the sun and artificial light like electronic devices and lightbulbs), and doing calming/relaxing activities are all ways to signal to the brain and body that it’s time to go to sleep.
Of course, there are medical conditions and different lifestyles (insomnia, medications, mental illnesses, working night shifts, shifts that start very early, shifts that end very late) where your ability to fall asleep at night can be impacted and the brain has a hard time actually getting to sleep when you want it. This is why having routines, rituals, and external cues can help make sleeping easier.
I used to be so frustrated by laying down and not being able to turn off whatever it was keeping me awake.
Then I tried lemborexant. For me, it’s a game changer.
It is an orexin agonist. Orexin is the hormone that wakes you up and makes you hungry. The new drug blocks the receptors that take it up.
We do.
It’s called hypnosis. Notice how you walk/drive to the usual daily path, and sometimes you cant recall much detail about your drive?
I use the same technique.
Pre bed ritual: i always do the same thing. Shower, kiss my wife, go to bed.
Once in bed, i induce hypnosis through an immersive story i tell myself, where i am one of the actor. It’s always a bit superheroish, action pack.
I fall asleep fast. The story isnt going forward fast at all i fall asleep so quickly.
You can teach your brain to fall asleep anywhere quickly. Navy Seals train to do it I believe. Probably takes awhile to get good at it.
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