If You Cannot Fall Asleep
Most people know the feeling. You are exhausted. The day has been long and heavy. You lie down, close your eyes — and nothing happens. The mind keeps running. The minutes stretch. You check the time, which makes it worse. Half an hour passes, then an hour, and somewhere in the background a familiar thought begins to form: I am not going to sleep again tonight.
For people living through war — in cities under missile threat, in temporary housing, in shelters, near the front — this experience is not occasional. It is the texture of every night. The body is tired but the nervous system refuses to stand down. Sirens, sounds, the habit of listening even while lying still, the weight of everything that happened and everything that might happen — all of it crowds into the hours that were supposed to belong to rest.
This article is for anyone in that situation. It does not promise a cure. It offers a few concrete steps that can make the night slightly less of a battle.
If you have been lying awake for what feels like twenty to thirty minutes and sleep has not come, the most useful thing you can do is get up. Not to check your phone
. Not to read the news. Simply to leave the bed and move somewhere else — another chair, another corner of the room, the corridor if you are in a shelter or shared space.
This sounds counterintuitive. You are tired. Why move? The reason is simple: when we lie awake struggling to sleep for long periods, the bed begins to feel like a place of defeat. The body learns to associate it with tension rather than rest. Getting up breaks that association. It says to the nervous system: this is not a place of battle. When drowsiness genuinely arrives — heavy eyelids, a softening of attention — go back. If another twenty minutes pass without sleep, repeat the cycle.
While you are up, do something quiet and neutral. A paper book. A warm drink taken slowly. Light stretching. Nothing that involves screens, news, or work. The goal is not productivity. The goal is simply to give the brain a little time to slow down without demanding that it perform.
What to say to yourself instead of "I will not sleep"
The thought "I am not going to sleep again" functions like a stimulant. It adds a layer of fear and urgency on top of an already activated nervous system. Having a few alternative sentences ready in advance — ones you can deliberately reach for in that moment — can change the tone of the internal conversation.
Try something like: "Not falling asleep in thirty minutes does not mean I will not sleep at all. Sleep has come later before." Or: "My job right now is not to force sleep. My job is to make slightly better conditions. The rest is my body's work." Or simply: "One difficult night does not ruin everything. I am doing what I can."
These are not magic formulas. They are a way of moving from a panicked inner voice to a steadier one. That shift, repeated over time, genuinely reduces the extra stress that we add to insomnia ourselves.
Small changes, realistic expectations
In wartime conditions, rebuilding everything at once rarely works. But small, specific changes can help. Try stabilizing your wake-up time even if bedtime varies — the body responds well to a consistent morning anchor. Introduce one simple signal that separates day from night: closing a laptop, washing your face, changing clothes, three minutes of slow breathing. Choose one thing to stop doing in the hour before sleep — news, difficult conversations, caffeine — and hold to that one thing rather than ten rules you cannot keep.
And give yourself some mercy. You are trying to sleep in conditions that were not designed for sleep. The fact that it is difficult is not a personal failure. It is a normal response to an abnormal situation.
The war outside is not in your control. The small habits of how you meet the night — these are still partly yours. That is enough to start with.
You can learn more by reading our e-book or listening to our audiobook
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