If you cannot sleep right now, here is the short version. Stop trying to sleep and let yourself simply rest. Turn the clock away. Give your mind one quiet, boring job: slow breathing, an imagined scene, relaxing your muscles one group at a time. If you are still wide awake after what feels like 20 minutes, get up, sit somewhere dim, do something dull until you are sleepy, then go back to bed. Whatever happens, get up at your normal time in the morning.
That is the whole plan. It comes from the part of insomnia treatment with the strongest evidence, and it works because it takes the pressure off. One bad night does very little harm; the fight against it is what does the damage.
The rest of this guide goes through each step in more detail, in the order you will need them. It is part of the Falling Asleep guides, which cover the longer-term picture once tonight is dealt with.
Step 1: the first 20 minutes in bed
Stop trying
Sleep is not something you do; it is something that happens when you stop doing. The more you chase it, the further it goes. In a well-known experiment, people told to fall asleep as fast as possible took longer than people told nothing. So the first move is to give up the goal. You are going to rest, and if sleep comes, fine.
Turn the clock away
Checking the time turns a wait into a sum: how long you have been awake, how much sleep you will get, how bad tomorrow will be. None of that arithmetic helps and all of it wakes you up. Face the clock to the wall. Leave the phone across the room.
Give your mind one quiet job
An idle mind at 1am fills itself with planning and replaying. The fix is not to empty it, which does not work, but to occupy it with something neutral.
- Breathe slowly, with the out-breath longer than the in-breath. Count the out-breaths from ten down to one and start again.
- Relax your body in sections: face, shoulders, arms, chest, legs, feet. Let each part go heavy in turn.
- Picture a scene in detail: a quiet beach, an empty train carriage, a garden in the rain. Notice the temperature, the sounds, what is under your hands.
- Shuffle words: pick a word, think of unrelated words starting with each letter, picture each one briefly. Deliberately pointless, which is the idea.
If you find yourself back in the day's problems, that is normal. Return to the job without comment. A body scan can help here; our body scan for sleep script is designed for exactly this moment.
Let the thoughts be there
If a worry keeps returning, do not argue with it. Note it ("tomorrow's meeting, again") and go back to the breath. If it is something practical, get up and write it down with the next step, then come back. If your mind seems to race harder the moment you lie down, the guide to racing thoughts at night explains why that happens and what helps.
If it is something physical
Sometimes the obstacle is not the mind. If you are too hot, push the duvet off one leg or open the window; a cooler body is a large part of falling asleep. If you need the loo, go, without turning on the big light. If you are hungry, a few mouthfuls of something plain is better than lying there noticing it. If you are in pain or your legs feel restless, it is worth knowing that both are common causes of lying awake and both are worth raising with a GP if they keep happening.
And if it is noise (a neighbour, traffic, a partner's breathing), a steady background sound or a pair of earplugs will do more than any mental technique.
In short: Rest instead of trying, hide the clock, and give your attention one quiet place to sit.
Step 2: if you are still awake, get up
This is the step people resist most, and it is the one with the best evidence. It is called stimulus control, and it has been a core part of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) since the 1970s. The idea is simple: if you spend long stretches lying awake in bed, your body learns that bed is a place for being awake. Getting up when you are wide awake breaks that link.
The rule of thumb is around 20 minutes, but do not time it. The cue is how you feel: if you are calm and drifting, stay. If you are tense, frustrated or alert, get up.
Go to another room if you can, or a chair in the bedroom if you cannot. Keep the lights low. Wrap up warm, because you will get cold. The plan is to stay up until you feel genuinely sleepy, which might be 15 minutes or might be an hour. Our guide to whether you should get up if you can't sleep looks at the 20-minute rule in more detail, including when it is better to stay put.
Step 3: what to do while you are up
The aim is quiet, dim and slightly boring. Nothing with a goal, nothing with a reply button, nothing that will make you want to keep going.
Good options: a book you have read before, a print magazine, a jigsaw or a simple craft, folding laundry, sitting with a warm drink (no caffeine), listening to a familiar audiobook or calm music at low volume. If listening helps and you share a room, sleep headphones let you do it without waking anyone; our sleep headphones guide covers the comfortable options for lying on your side.
Things to avoid: the news, email, work, social feeds, the fridge, bright kitchen lights, and any conversation you have been putting off. Do not start a task you will want to finish.
Some people find steady sound easier to settle to than silence when they are keyed up. Our guide to calming sounds for anxiety at night explains what tends to work and what to avoid.
If listening helps you settle
A soft headband lets you follow an audiobook or calm audio lying down, on your side, without disturbing a partner.
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Headband sleep headphones
Example: SleepPhones; CozyPhones; Musicozy
Headband headphones put flat speakers inside a stretchy fabric band that doubles as a light-blocking eye cover for some people. Models are marketed as wired or Bluetooth, with the speakers usually removable so the band can be washed.
- Best for
- Side sleepers who want audio without anything inside the ear
- Key feature
- Thin, flat speakers inside a soft fabric headband
- Why it may help
- Ordinary earbuds press into the ear when you lie on your side. A headband keeps the speaker flat against the ear so you can listen to sleep sounds or guided relaxation comfortably.
- Worth knowing
- Audio quality is basic and bass-light; the band can feel warm in summer; battery life varies by model.
Step 4: going back to bed
Return when you feel sleepy: heavy eyes, yawning, losing your place on the page. Not when you feel you ought to. Then do the same things as before: no clock, one quiet job, no effort.
If you are awake again after a while, get up again. This can happen two or three times in a bad night, and that is fine. Each time you do it, you are teaching your body something useful. Most people find the second or third return is the one that works.
If this is the second or third night in a row, resist the urge to change everything. Do not move bedtime earlier, do not cancel tomorrow, do not start researching sleep at 3am. The plan is the same on night three as on night one, and it works better the more ordinary you keep the days around it.
Step 5: the morning after
Get up at your usual time, even after a terrible night. This is the step that protects tomorrow night. A lie-in moves your body clock later and reduces the pressure to sleep, so the next evening's wait gets longer. Getting up on time means tonight's sleep pressure starts building from the right point.
Then get outside for ten minutes if you can. Daylight anchors the clock and takes the edge off the fog.
Do not nap for more than 20 minutes, and not after mid-afternoon. Do not go to bed early tonight to make up for it; go at your normal time or slightly later, when you are properly sleepy. And do not treat one bad night as a pattern. It is very unlikely to be one.
About that one bad night
A single night of poor sleep feels catastrophic at 3am and is, in reality, a minor event. Your body is good at compensating: the next night's sleep is usually deeper, and most people function better than they expect on a short night, even if they feel rough. The guide to whether you can catch up on sleep explains what actually happens.
What turns a bad night into a bad month is the reaction to it: going to bed early, lying in, cancelling plans, dreading the evening. If you can keep the day normal, the night usually sorts itself out.
When it keeps happening
If you are having this kind of night three or more times a week and it has gone on for months, the plan above still applies, but you should not be managing it alone. Talk to a GP. The first-line treatment for persistent insomnia is CBT-I, which builds on exactly the steps in this guide with structure and support. It is available through some GP practices, NHS talking therapies services and approved digital programmes. Our guide to when to see a GP about sleep explains what to bring to the appointment.
See a GP sooner if you also snore heavily or wake gasping, if your legs will not stay still at night, if your mood has been low for a few weeks, or if a medicine seems to have changed your sleep. Do not stop or change any medication on your own.
Tonight's version
- Hide the clock. Stop trying.
- Breathe out slowly and relax your body from the face down.
- Still wide awake and frustrated? Get up, dim light, dull book, until you are sleepy.
- Back to bed. Repeat if needed.
- Up at the usual time tomorrow, and outside for ten minutes.
You do not have to get to sleep tonight. You only have to rest, and let the next night be better.
Frequently asked questions
Should I just stay in bed and rest if I can't sleep?
Resting quietly with your eyes closed has some value, and if you are calm it is fine to stay put. But lying there frustrated for an hour teaches your body that bed is a place to be awake and annoyed. If you are tense or clock-watching, getting up for a while is the better option.
Is it OK to look at my phone if I can't sleep?
It is not ideal, but it is not the disaster it is made out to be either. The problem is less the light than the content: a feed or a group chat wakes the mind up. If you must use it, keep the screen dim, avoid anything with a reply button, and put it down as soon as you feel sleepy.
What if I can't sleep every night?
If it is happening three or more nights a week and has gone on for months, it is worth talking to a GP. The most effective treatment for persistent insomnia is CBT-I, a structured programme that is available through some GP practices, NHS talking therapies services and digital courses.
Can I take a sleeping tablet just for tonight?
Over-the-counter sleep aids from a pharmacy can help occasionally, but they are not meant for regular use and can leave you groggy. Ask the pharmacist. Do not take someone else's prescription medicine, and do not combine sleep aids with alcohol.
Sources and further reading
- NHS: Insomnia
- NICE: Insomnia: Clinical Knowledge Summary
- Sleep Foundation: Sleep hygiene
- Annual Review of Clinical Psychology: Bootzin, R. R. and Epstein, D. R. (2011). Understanding and treating insomnia. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 7, 435–458.
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Written and reviewed by the Quiet Mind Sleep editorial team in line with our editorial policy. Spotted an error? Let us know.
