See title. Ever since I was young I had trouble sleeping. Please help.

Depends on the reason u can't sleep

What helped me personally was eating food a few hours before bed. Sometimes people fail to go to sleep due to anxiety, nutrient deficiencies, low melatonin levels, among a myriad of other potential reasons.

i use sleeping drugs and prayer

I play some relaxing music in the background. Baroque, light classical, Billy Joel, The Eagles, ...

In college, I used to use headphones so I wouldn't wake up my roommate.

The mixes of ocean and nature sounds never did anything for me.

If you hold your breath long enough, you sleep forever.

Is there something that you really should do that’s preventing you from sleeping when that thing is urgent?

I’ve heard switching of your phone/computer and any other devices that emit light help half an hour before you sleep should help. If you’re on Windows 10, if you set up night light to 3/4 orange on a schedule of a few hours before you want to sleep, you’ll feel more tired naturally. Accidentally found that out when I was ill sometime last year when all screens generally looked to bright. Keeping night light in even when not ill made me feel tired a couple of hours faster than normal.

What Dan said is true.
The screen light is indeed the biggest problem for young people in terms of sleeping.
If you really want to change something, turn your computer, phone etc. off 1-2 hours before sleeping.

Many screens nowadays have an option to warm colors to eliminate blue light

Obviously they don't totally eliminate blue light, they just reduce it.

why sleep when you can stay awake

nr of people sleeping goes to 0

^that can lead to insanity, but more commonly insomnia

I just pop some music or podcast on most nights. Generally I'm tired enough to be asleep at 9 to 12ish every night

I don't know about you. But caffeine makes a huge difference too me. I don't feel like caffeine has a big effect on me when I am awake and moving. But when I am caffeinated, I just can't 'turn off my thoughts.' I now realize that I can't have caffeine after 4 pm, if I want to fall asleep easily at midnight.

Cutting caffeine out was a real game changer for me. Maybe it will be for you too?

Thanks for all of the help! Tonight I will:
- listen to a few calming songs, and then not go on electronic devices for the rest of the night
- play soothing songs on the piano to relax
- take some vitamins so I am not nutrient deficient
- go in bed at 9:30 so I can be asleep by 10:00

Isochronic / Binaural Beats

You can force your brainwave frequency to that of what would be normally be the "sleepmodus" Hz

my fav was using very low frequency together with brown noise
got be back to a somewhat normal sleeping pattern after years of shift work (also nights)


otherwise, try audiobooks whilst already in bed :)

Edited 1/22/2019 22:51:27

You need to actually work with your brain and maybe body (even few minutes of excercises) some time before sleep. I - while having problems with sleep myself - definitely have a different sleep after half a day of trying to build workable piece of code, and different when I mostly relax after uni.
Blue light, or lack of, never made much difference to me honestly, in fact I would read some book on my tablet before sleep and still sleep.

my fav was using very low frequency together with brown noise

You do know that high-frequency sounds give you headaches, right?

I tried it in Python 3 when I learn about "gamma" and "alpha waves".

I still hear that sound sometimes.