Do you use nature sound apps to help with insomnia?

It seems there are nights when I am wide awake and cannot fall asleep, I have a couple nature sound apps on my phone and tablet that I use on such nights. My favorite is called SleepSounds for iOS and it has a large catalogue of individual sounds you can download and merge together.
My favorite is gentle rain on a metal roof / wind in the city / distant thunder

 

I don't, but I take an active approach to improving sleep: I wear earplugs every night to bed. It helps!

 

I have thought about that idea, but I am uncertain if I will not be able to hear when my alarm goes off in the morning and oversleep / late for work

 

That's what my dad says, only I think he worries about the phone ringing or not hearing if someone breaks in. I think I'd still hear the phone; maybe not a break in though.

 

All I need to do is open a window... Nature is right outside.

 

Birds, bees, bears and shit just keep you awake. Nothing beats mother's little helper.

 

A bit of rainstorms or wind, sometimes 10hr tracks of old locomotives, steam engines. Some industrial equipment like punch presses can be hypnotic as can the sound of a blacksmith at work.
Traditional Iranian music, Persian flutes or a bit of the Ludwig Van seems to do the trick.
There's a utility on snapfiles for downloading the audio portion of YouTube videos as an MP3 that can be helpful when you don't want to be woken by random ads or have YouTube decide to pause itself. I think it's called MediaHume? I'll double check when I get to the laptop

 

In and out my Wifey snores a little bit.
When this happens I put my in ear Bose noise cancelling earphones in my ear.
This creates a sort of very light white noise which cuts out all other sounds completely.

'The sound of waves breaking on a beach can be very relaxing and aid sleep.'

Sort of like what London Lady says there!

Not only that but my Bose are brilliant for when I travel on buses and planes and trains as I play my favourite music from Amazon HD Music.
A little sprog baby can be crying it's little heart out bless it.
And I can only hear my music.
Lubbly Jubbly!

 

When you're lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo'd by anxiety,
I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety;
For your brain is on fire and the bedclothes conspire of your usual slumber to plunder you:
First your counterpane goes, and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from under you;
Then the blanketing tickles, you feel like mixed pickles so terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick 'em all up in a tangle;
Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle!
Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eyeballs and head ever aching.
But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you’d very much better be waking;

For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing about in a steamer from Harwich,
Which is something between a large bathing machine and a very small second-class carriage;
And you're giving a treat (penny ice and cold meat) to a party of friends and relations,
They're a ravenous horde, and they all came on board at Sloane Square and South Kensington Stations.
And bound on that journey you find your attorney (who started that morning from Devon);
He's a bit undersized, and you don't feel surprised when he tells you he's only eleven.
Well, you're driving like mad with this singular lad (by the by, the ship's now a four-wheeler),
And you're playing round games, and he calls you bad names when you tell him that "ties pay the dealer";
But this you can't stand, so you throw up your hand, and you find you're as cold as an icicle,
In your shirt and your socks (the black silk with gold clocks), crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle:
And he and the crew are on bicycles too, which they've somehow or other invested in,
And he's telling the tars all the particulars of a company he's interested in,
It's a scheme of devices, to get at low prices all goods from cough mixtures to cables
(Which tickled the sailors), by treating retailers as though they were all vegetables:
You get a good spadesman to plant a small tradesman (first take off his boots with a boot-tree),
And his legs will take root, and his fingers will shoot, and they'll blossom and bud like a fruit-tree,
From the greengrocer tree you get grapes and green pea, cauliflower, pineapple, and cranberries,
While the pastrycook plant cherry brandy will grant, apple puffs, and three corners, and Banburys,
The shares are a penny, and ever so many are taken by Rothschild and Baring,
And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake with a shudder despairing...

You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder you snore, for your head's on the floor,
and you've needles and pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for your left leg's asleep,
and you've cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose, and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue,
and a thirst that's intense, and a general sense that you haven't been sleeping in clover;

But the darkness has passed, and it's daylight at last, and the night has been long
ditto my song
and thank goodness they're both of them over!

 

I sleep to the melow sounds of native American flute and some rain and thunder

 

I find that when my mind is too active for me to sleep, if I concentrate on keeping my eyes still and at the same time, observe my breathing, that calms me down and I can usually fall asleep. Sometimes I have to tell myself that this is not the time for thinking and that I'll be much better off if I go to sleep. That seems to help.

I think we sometimes get some kind of satisfaction or maybe pleasure from thinking or we're inclined to problem solving, which probably helped us survive as a species, but that inclination may interfere with sleep when it hits us at the wrong time.

If only there was an off switch. That would make things a lot easier.

 

No apps here...no apps for anything actually....

Anyone think about homeopathy for insomnia? It could work for you folks with this horrid issue. 8 Homeopathic remedies to help with insomnia | The School of Homeopathy's Latest News

Part of my sleep combo contains a homeopathic supplement: Calms Forte'.....it's pretty amazing.

 

I use a app, white noise & rain

a simple fan will also do the trick

my ears ring so unfortunately I really need noise to get a good nights sleep