When you can't sleep, the most useful thing is to stop fighting it. Don't check the clock, keep the lights low, and relax your body. If you're still awake after what feels like 20 minutes, get out of bed, do something calm and dull in dim light, and come back only when you feel sleepy.
That last step sounds backwards, but it's one of the core techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), the treatment doctors recommend first for chronic insomnia. This guide is about the moment you're lying awake, whether at midnight or 3 a.m. For habits that help you fall asleep in the first place, see how to fall asleep fast.
Is it normal to wake up in the middle of the night?
Yes. Sleep runs in cycles of REM and non-REM sleep that restart every 80 to 100 minutes, usually four to six times a night, and you may wake briefly between cycles (NHLBI). Deep sleep happens more often early in the night, and REM sleep, when most dreaming happens, is more common later on.
The problem starts when you wake fully and can't drift back. Waking at the same time every night can also become a learned habit, according to Cleveland Clinic sleep psychologist Alicia Roth: the body gets conditioned to wake "like clockwork" (Cleveland Clinic, 2024).
What to do when you can't sleep: step by step
1. Don't check the time
Looking at the clock starts the mental math ("If I fall asleep now, I'll get four hours"), and that math is stressful. In two experiments, people told to watch a clock before sleep worried more and reported taking longer to fall asleep than people who didn't; they also overestimated how long they'd been awake (Tang, Schmidt & Harvey, 2007).
Mayo Clinic advises keeping clocks out of sight. Turn the alarm clock around, and leave your phone face down. Estimating "about 20 minutes" is good enough for everything below.
2. Keep the lights low
Light tells your brain it's time to be awake. In a study of healthy adults, ordinary room light during the usual sleep hours strongly suppressed melatonin, the hormone that rises at night, in 11 of 13 trials (Gooley et al., 2011).
So if you need to move around, use the dimmest light that's safe: a small lamp or a night-light, not the overhead light. If you have to use your phone:
- Turn the brightness all the way down and switch on night or dark mode.
- Do the one thing you need, then put it down. Don't open email, news or social media.
- Don't scroll to "make yourself tired." It rarely works and keeps the screen in your face.
3. Relax your body and slow your breathing
Lying still in the dark is a good time for a simple relaxation exercise. Two that work well in bed:
- Muscle relaxation: tense each muscle group for about five seconds, then let it go, moving from your toes up to your forehead (Cleveland Clinic).
- Slow breathing: breathe in gently through your nose and make the exhale longer than the inhale. Don't force it.
Relaxation techniques are safe and easy to use, but the evidence that they treat insomnia on their own is small and low quality (NCCIH). Think of them as a way to stop the spiral, not a switch. Step-by-step instructions for 4-7-8 breathing and the "military method" are in how to fall asleep fast.
4. Get up if you're not drifting off
If you're still awake after about 20 minutes, get out of bed. Mayo Clinic advises going to another room and doing something quiet until you feel sleepy, and Cleveland Clinic's behavioral sleep specialist Michelle Drerup puts the cutoff at about 15 to 20 minutes (Cleveland Clinic).
This is called stimulus control. The idea is to stop your brain from linking your bed with lying awake and frustrated. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine suggests stimulus control as a treatment for chronic insomnia even on its own (AASM, 2020), and it's part of the CBT-I package.
5. Do something dull in dim light
Pick something calm and boring enough that you won't get hooked:
- Read a printed book or magazine you've read before.
- Listen to quiet music or a calm audio track at low volume.
- Fold laundry, sort a drawer, sit and stretch gently.
- Write down whatever is on your mind, then close the notebook.
Avoid anything that rewards you for staying up: work, games, shows you want to finish, or arguments online. Cleveland Clinic suggests reading something dull or listening to relaxing music, then going back to bed when you feel drowsy.
6. Go back to bed only when you're sleepy
Wait until you feel sleepy, not just tired: the kind of drowsy where you'd doze off in front of the TV (Stanford Health Care). If you lie down and you're wide awake again after a while, repeat steps 4 and 5. It may take a few rounds on a bad night.
7. Get up at your usual time anyway
After a rough night, the temptation is to sleep in. Don't. Both the NHS and Mayo Clinic advise keeping your normal wake time even after poor sleep, and a regular rise time helps set your body's sleep-wake clock (Stanford Health Care).
If you need a nap, keep it short. Stanford's stimulus control guidance says a brief nap of 15 to 30 minutes is generally fine; longer naps make the next night harder.
What not to do at 3 a.m.
- Don't lie there for hours trying harder. "Don't spend time in bed trying to fall asleep," as Cleveland Clinic's Michelle Drerup puts it. Get up instead.
- Don't reach for a nightcap. Mayo Clinic's advice is at most one drink, at least four hours before bed.
- Don't count on over-the-counter sleep aids. They rarely give effective or long-term help with staying asleep, according to Mayo Clinic.
- Don't start solving problems. Write the worry down and leave it for the morning.
- Don't turn on bright lights or a bright screen unless you need to.
Where ASMR fits
ASMR, the relaxing, sometimes tingly feeling some people get from soft sounds like whispering, tapping or brushing, can be a calm thing to listen to when you're awake at night. Many fans already use it this way: in the first peer-reviewed ASMR survey, 82% of 475 participants said they watched to help them sleep (Barratt & Davis, 2015). That's self-reported by fans, though, and ASMR isn't a proven treatment for insomnia.
The closest well-studied cousin is music: a Cochrane review of 13 trials found that listening to music probably improves self-reported sleep quality in adults with insomnia (Jespersen et al., 2022). ASMR hasn't been tested that thoroughly.
If you want to try it in the middle of the night, set it up so it doesn't break the rules above:
- Audio only. Start it, turn the brightness down and put the phone face down. Don't browse for the "right" video at 3 a.m.; pick a couple of favorites in the daytime.
- Quiet, voice-light styles. No-talking ASMR or a calm soft-spoken voice is easier on a tired brain than fast, busy triggers.
- Low volume. Sounds at or below 70 dBA are unlikely to harm hearing even after long exposure (NIDCD). Lower is better at night.
- A sleep timer. Let it stop on its own once you're likely asleep, and turn autoplay off.
- It doesn't replace getting up. If you're still wide awake after about 20 minutes of listening, take it with you to another room or turn it off and follow step 4.
The rows on this page are pulled live from the Tingly Room catalogue, so they change as videos are added. Tingly Room is a free video finder for public YouTube ASMR videos, sorted by trigger, voice, pace and length. It has no ads of its own and no third-party trackers, and videos play in YouTube's official player. For a type-by-type guide, see the best ASMR for sleep.
If it happens most nights
Try going to bed a little later
It sounds strange, but spending less time lying awake in bed can help. If you're going to bed well before you're sleepy, Cleveland Clinic's Alicia Roth suggests experimenting with a bedtime 30 minutes to an hour later to break a pattern of early-morning waking (Cleveland Clinic, 2024). Keep your wake time fixed while you try it.
Ask about CBT-I
If sleepless nights keep coming back, CBT-I is the recommended first treatment for chronic insomnia, ahead of sleeping pills (ACP, 2016). The AASM strongly recommends it as well. It combines work on unhelpful thoughts about sleep with behavioral steps such as stimulus control and sleep restriction, and it can be done in person, in a group, by phone, online or with a self-help book.
When to see a doctor
Occasional sleepless nights are normal. Talk to a doctor if:
- You have trouble sleeping at least three nights a week for three months or more. That's the definition of chronic insomnia (ACP).
- Changing your sleep habits hasn't helped, or poor sleep makes it hard to cope with daily life (NHS).
- You snore loudly, wake up gasping, have restless legs, are in pain at night, or feel low. Conditions such as sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, long-term pain and depression can keep insomnia going until they're treated (Mayo Clinic).
If worries are what keep you up, our guide on how to reduce stress may help. If you're in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (US).
