Nobody falls asleep. We are lowered into it — gently, or not at all.
Ten p.m. One more email. One more episode. One more scroll. Then lights off, and you expect the mind to stop like a switched-off fan.
But minds are not fans. They are flywheels. They keep spinning at the speed you fed them.
What I've noticed after three decades: people who sleep well almost never try to sleep. They descend. The good sleepers I've known have, without realising it, built a slope — dimmer light, slower tasks, quieter inputs.
The struggling sleepers go from full speed to full stop and call the crash insomnia.
The body reads the hour before bed as instructions for the night.
What are your last sixty minutes teaching your body?
Choose one thing you always do before bed — brushing teeth, perhaps — and do it at half speed. Just that. You are lowering the flywheel.
If sleeplessness persists for weeks despite a calm evening, or arrives with low mood, it deserves professional attention, not more discipline.