After an action-packed day—or one equally packed with worry—your brain needs some time to catch up, to make order of things, and to slow its frenetic firing before you’re ready to sleep. Pure bodily exhaustion can probably get you at least that first hour of dozing, but then worries will rise to the surface and cause you to stir. So, how can you get your mind to chill out so that your body can too?

“We need to learn to apply the brakes before the car is in the garage,” says Rubin Naiman, Ph.D., a sleep and dream specialist at Andrew Weil’s Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. “Clearing your head is key to a good night of sleep.” Simply taking 15 minutes to sit quietly, meditate, pray, do rhythmic breathing, or yoga (see below) can allow your mind to slow down enough to sleep through the night.

Establishing any ritual that you do before bed—taking a bath, sipping a cup of (decaf) tea, anything but checking your e-mail—will do more than relax you right then and there. The repetition also conditions your brain and body for sleep, says Jeffrey Thompson, director of the Center for Neuroacoustic Research in Encinitas, California. While you’re transitioning to Z-mode the same way night after night, you’re also creating a Pavlovian response to your ritual. So simply sitting in the spot where you do your mindful breathing or turning on the bath water signals your mind that it will be sleeping soon, Thompson says.

Another way to condition yourself sleepward is to play off the body’s internal clock. Dr. Naiman suggests simulating dusk about an hour before you plan to go to bed by dimming the lights significantly. This triggers natural circadian rhythms that help us prepare for sleep.

Quit sleeping with the enemy
Guess who has stress under the covers with them most often? That would be women. “Women tend to take stress to bed and mull over it,” says Joyce Walsleben, Ph.D., associate professor at New York University School of Medicine and author of A Woman’s Guide to Sleep. To keep it from waking you up, she suggests keeping a worry book—a journal where a couple of hours before bed, you write down the thoughts you might stew over. Then, she says, when those thoughts creep into your head later, say to yourself, “I can’t improve upon it today, so I’m not thinking about it.” You have your To Be Worried About list, and when you can act on it you will. Other experts recommend literally kicking those worries out of the bedroom. Physically take the journal to another room and leave it ‘til morning. (Make it sleep on the couch, as it were.)

Breathe toward slumber
In a small Harvard study using yoga breathing techniques to treat insomnia, all subjects reported an improvement in the quality and quantity of sleep. “There is evidence that long, slow abdominal breathing will reduce anxiety and arousal,” says Sat-Bir Khalsa, Ph.D., director of the study and an instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Dr. Naiman recommends one breathing technique (similar to those Dr. Khalsa used in his research) called the 4-7-8 breath exercise. With your tongue resting on the roof of your mouth, just behind your upper teeth, exhale completely. Close your mouth and inhale through your nose for four counts. Hold your breath for seven counts. Then, exhale while mentally counting to eight. Repeat the cycle three more times. Both are important for restful sleep.

Take a pose to the doze
Yoga asanas were originally designed to calm the body and quiet the mind, preparing the yogi for meditation. Today’s researchers see the same process at work. “There’s a feedback loop between the muscles and the brain,” Dr. Naiman explains. “When you stretch and release tension, the brain relaxes too.” The deepest meditative state, or yoga nidra, is known as “sleepless sleep.’’

To get to a sleepful state, Dr. Khalsa finds Bridge pose especially useful. Lie on your back with knees bent at a 90-degree angle and your heels parallel, close to your butt. Lift your hips and arch up onto your shoulders. Lace your palms together underneath your body and press your arms into the floor or mat. Hold the posture while taking 10 to 15 long, slow breaths.