Six relaxation techniques for sleep you can do in bed

What a relaxation technique actually does

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, part of the US National Institutes of Health, describes relaxation techniques as practices meant to bring on the body's natural relaxation response: slower breathing, lower blood pressure and a calmer overall state. It is the opposite gear to the stress response that a busy day leaves running.

At bedtime that matters because the thing standing between a tired person and sleep is often activation, not a lack of tiredness. Your body may be heavy while your heart, muscles and thoughts are still working at daytime speed. A relaxation technique is a structured way to bring those down.

None of these methods knock you out. They lower the background noise so that sleep, which is usually already on its way, has room to arrive.

Six techniques, by what they work on

• Slow breathing. Lengthening the exhale is the most direct lever you have while lying still. Our guide to breathing exercises for sleep compares the main patterns.
• Progressive muscle relaxation. Tense one muscle group for a few seconds, then let it go, working through the body in order. See the step-by-step version.
• Body scan. Move your attention slowly from your feet to your head without changing anything you find. Here is how to do a body scan.
• Autogenic training. Developed by German psychiatrist Johannes Schultz in the 1920s and 1930s, it uses short silent phrases such as "my arms are heavy" and "my legs are warm," repeated while you rest your attention on each part of the body. Many people find the heaviness phrases alone are enough at night.
• Guided imagery. Picture a calm, slow scene in detail: the sounds, the light, the temperature of the air. Our guide on what to think about to fall asleep has ideas that do not drift into planning.
• Cognitive shuffle. Picture a stream of random, unrelated objects, one every few seconds, so your mind cannot build a story. The cognitive shuffle guide explains the method.

How to choose

Start with whatever feels loudest when you lie down. If your body is tense or your heart is pounding, begin with the breath or the muscles. If your body is still but your thoughts are not, an attention technique such as imagery or the shuffle usually fits better. If it is both, combine them: two minutes of slow breathing, then a scan or an image.

The attention techniques have some direct support. In a 2002 study in Behaviour Research and Therapy, people troubled by unwanted thoughts at bedtime who were taught to occupy their minds with a calm, engaging scene fell asleep sooner than people given general distraction instructions.

Personal preference matters more than rankings. Some people find any focus on the body makes them uneasy, and some find counting breaths tedious. Neither is a failure. Pick the method that feels most like resting.

Making it a habit

Relaxation is a skill, so it improves with practice. Try your chosen technique once during the day, when nothing is at stake, and then every night for one to two weeks. Use the same order each time so there is nothing to decide in the dark.

Keep sessions short at first, five to fifteen minutes, and let yourself drift off partway through. If you share a bed, every technique here is silent and needs no movement a partner would notice.

If you are lying awake most nights despite a steady routine, or the tiredness is affecting your days, talk to a clinician about structured help.