Using self distraction to relax and to get to sleep involves taking your mind off a worrisome subject or any other issue of your day by thinking of something completely different that is pleasant or boring. No one can get to sleep if they are trying to solve a personal problem or they are preparing for a meeting the next day at work.

If you are trying to get to sleep and you’re constantly thinking about the world’s economy, global warming or whether Brad and Brandi on Terminal Hospital will get their heads unglued in time for the twin’s graduation from underwater dentistry school, then you should try thinking of being on a hillside on a clear summers day with flowers as far as the eye can see, or at a seashore, watching the waves lap up on the shore.

Any pleasant image will do and the more calming or even boring it is the better.

Another method that I often use involves slowly counting backward from one hundred. If I get to zero I just go back to one hundred and start again. More often my mind will wonder and I will loose where I am. No worries, I’ll just start again from 100.

As you are counting in your mind you can also see each number float by and drop into a well.

Then there is the old standby, counting sheep. Imagine them jumping over a fence and floating away.

You can also try doing multiplication tables, or trying to think of an animal using every letter of the alphabet.

Anything pleasant or boring will work for self distraction as long as it’s not something that will get you worked up, like sex or politics or sex in politics.

What do you think about to calm you mind to get to sleep? Leave your comment below.