I wake up at 3am to 4am daily as a neighbor makes noise walking their dog. This cannot be helped. Once I am awake, my mind won’t stop going over details about everything from the mundane to the critical. Often, I am able to fall asleep again after three or more hours of wakefulness, but only minutes before I have to wake for the day.

Does anyone have success with quieting the mind without substances so that they can fall back to sleep?

Edit: I want to thank you all for the helpful comments. I’m reading through them now and wioo be internalizing some of the suggestions.

To provide more context for those who asked:

I do have ADHD and OCD and Anxiety.
I sleep with a fan and a white noise track (10hrs of non-repeating noise I d/l’d with newpipe). My apartment building has a fire escape that the neighbor uses as their front door. This path means using a heavy steel door on a power hinge. (Slam!) The door is against the wall that my headboard is on. They have every right to use whichever door they like, and I don’t know them well enough yet to ask them to change for me. They are trying to be as quiet as they can, other than using the loudest path possible. They seem very nice, and their dog is quiet and well trained.
I’m in the middle of a long period of unemployment and I am beginning to worry about finances, as my savings are about half gone in a year.

Thanks again for all the suggestions! I’ll report back with my results in a few days.

  • Mouselemming
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    9 months ago

    As soon as your mind gets onto something worrisome, get up and go use the toilet. This will wake you up enough to deal with the thoughts (either solve or firmly dismiss them) rather than tiredly letting them roll around in your head. It will also allow you to relax your body more fully when you go back to bed, so you can fall asleep faster and more deeply. Another thing that might help is to start a pattern of going to bed half an hour earlier. This could shift your sleep cycle so that you’re in a different stage when doggie wants to pee. Either you’ll be deep enough to ignore it or awake enough to take charge and make your mean brain treat you more like a friend.