How Can I Get to Sleep Fast?

On the nights our sleep goes wrong, we spend an average of nearly an hour and a half awake, according to our 2026 UK Sleep Survey. The daytime habits and bedroom setup that make sleep easier matter a lot, and we walk through them in our guide to sleeping better at night. This is the other half of the puzzle. When you’re already tucked up and your brain won’t quit, these are the techniques you can reach for right then and there.

When you can’t sleep, your breathing is the one part of the nervous system you can directly grab hold of. Slow it down, and the rest of your body tends to follow. Our favourite is the 4-7-8 method, made popular by Dr Andrew Weil. Breathe in through your nose for four seconds, hold for seven, then breathe out slowly through your mouth for eight. A few rounds can lower your heart rate and tip you towards sleep.

If counting feels fiddly, try slow belly breathing instead. Breathe in through your nose so your stomach rises, then let it out gently and a little longer than you breathed in. The longer out-breath is the bit that does the calming. For more options, including alternate nostril breathing, which helps settle the nervous system, see our guide to breathing techniques for sleep.

Borrowed from soldiers who needed to drop off anywhere, the military sleep method is the most talked-about trick going. Our 2026 survey found 16% of us have already tried it, and another 22% would give it a go. The idea is to relax your body from the face down, jaw, shoulders, arms, all the way to your toes, then clear your mind by picturing something still, like lying in a canoe on a calm lake. There isn’t a big study on the method by name, but it leans on two things that are well-backed by research, muscle relaxation and mental imagery, both of which get their own section below. It takes a few nights to click, so don’t write it off after one attempt.

Progressive muscle relaxation is the military method’s more thorough cousin. You tense one muscle group hard for a few seconds, then release it and notice the difference. Start at your feet. Scrunch them tight for five to ten seconds, let go, then work up through your calves, thighs, tummy, hands, arms, shoulders and face. By the time you reach the top, a lot of the tension you didn’t even know you were holding has gone. It works because you can’t be tense and relaxed at once, so forcing the tension first makes the letting go that much deeper.

If it’s your brain rather than your body keeping you up, give it something gloriously pointless to do. Cognitive shuffling was developed by cognitive scientist Dr Luc Beaudoin at Simon Fraser University, and the idea is simple. Picture a string of random, unconnected objects one after another, with no story linking them. A lemon. A kite. A teaspoon. An elephant. Because the images don’t join up, your brain can’t latch onto a worry, and that scattered, dreamlike thinking is exactly what happens as you nod off. You’re basically imitating sleep until the real thing turns up.

Guided imagery is cognitive shuffling’s prettier sibling. Instead of random objects, you build one calming scene in as much detail as you can, a quiet beach, a warm cabin, a slow walk through woods. The trick is the detail. Hear the waves, feel the sand, smell the salt. Loading up your senses leaves less room for the mental to-do list, and research on imagery distraction found that people fell asleep faster with it than with no technique at all. If a blank scene is hard to conjure, the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding method gives you a ready-made structure to follow.

This one sounds daft, and that’s rather the point. Paradoxical intention means lying in bed and gently trying to stay awake, eyes open, with no effort to sleep at all. The theory is that a lot of us keep ourselves up by trying too hard, until the pressure to drop off becomes its own problem. Take the pressure away, and sleep can sneak in. Some studies suggest it can cut the time it takes to fall asleep, though results vary from person to person, so treat it as one to experiment with. Keep it gentle. No screens, no getting up, just rest with your eyes open and let your body do what it wants.

A bit of self-massage can help your body let go of the day, and there’s real evidence behind it. A review of more than 30 trials found acupressure improved sleep quality, with how quickly people dropped off being among the things it helped most. It’s easy to try without getting out of bed. A popular spot is the slight dip between your eyebrows, held with light pressure for a minute or so. Another sits about three finger-widths below your wrist crease on the inside of your forearm. Our guide to pressure points for sleep shows you where to find them.

Sound can do a lot of the relaxing for you. Music works directly on the nervous system, slowing things down and easing you towards rest, and around 62% of people already use it to help them sleep. Our own 2026 survey found that one in five of us listen to music in bed. If lyrics keep you thinking, try white, pink or brown noise instead, which smooths over the sudden sounds that jolt you awake. Some people swear by ASMR or binaural beats, too. Whatever you pick, set a timer so it isn’t playing all night.

All of these work best when the basics are in place. If you’re regularly fighting to drop off, it’s worth looking at the bigger picture: your routine, evening screen time, what you eat and drink late on and how your bedroom is set up. We cover all of that in our guide to how to sleep better at night. It’s also worth a sense-check of the bed itself. No breathing exercise will outweigh a lumpy, unsupportive mattress or the wrong pillow, so if yours has seen better days, that might be the real fix.

There’s no single switch that knocks everyone out. Try one technique for a few nights, and keep whichever one suits you.

Falling asleep fast is half the battle. Waking up at the right point in your sleep cycle is the other half, so you come round feeling fresher. Our Sleep Cycle Calculator works out the best time to go to bed or set your alarm. Give it a go.