Distract yourself

Sometimes it can help to have some techniques or simple games to play in our minds when we’re in bed.

The idea is that they can help us to feel relaxed by holding our attention enough to stop us from thinking about anything stressful, but they are not so interesting that our brain doesn’t want to switch off. This is the rational behind when people talk about “counting sheep.”

People have come up with lots of different ideas of easy mind games to play to help them drift off. What works is different for everyone, but we’ve put some ideas below.

Try it out

Word-play

Choose any word. For this example, let’s try ‘Pineapple’.

Start with the first letter of the word, then list off in your head every word you can think of beginning with that letter (so here, you would start with P and might go with Pig, Pink,Petal, Place, Planet, Proud).

Once you stop being able to think of words beginning with that letter, go on to the next letter of your original word and think of all the words you can beginning with that letter (so here, that would be words beginning with ‘I’, such as Igloo, Ice, Item, India).

Keep going until you reach the end of your initial word, or until you fall asleep.

If you finish your word before you’re asleep, just pick another one!

Imaginary cooking

Imagine you’re preparing your favourite meal.

Work through deciding on the ingredients you need, the order in which you combine them, how to go about cooking them, and finally how it will taste when you put it together.

Walk a path

Think of a path or journey you know well (or make one up).

Walk along the path in your mind, noticing all the things you see, hear, touch or smell as you walk along.

Pictures

In your mind, picture a simple image (like a piece of fruit or a flower).

Look closely at how it appears: size, texture, shape. Rotate it in your mind.

When you’ve looked at every aspect, change all of its colours (e.g. a red strawberry with green leaves becomes a blue strawberry with orange leaves). Rotate it in your mind again and notice the impact of the changes.

Watching the dark

This is attending to the darkness you see when your eyes are closed. Watch the darkness.

Focus on whether the colours change, whether the patterns become different.

Simply focus on the darkness and see what changes.

Daydream

Imagine yourself going on an adventure.

Maybe you find yourself on a remote Island. How did you get there?

What does it look like? What happens when you get there?

Tidy up an imaginary house

Imagine you’ve been asked to tidy up a quiet house in a calm forest.

Picture yourself going into each room and peacefully doing each of the tasks you need to get everything put in it’s right place.

A-Z

Pick a category (e.g. animals, foods, countries) and think of a member of that category for every letter of the alphabet. If you get to Z, pick a new category.

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Page last reviewed: 7 February, 2024