What works for me is to just put on a documentary and something about the monotone narration voice just shuts my brain down. I don't even pay attention to the words. I'm generally asleep within minutes. I assume audio books might have the same effect.
I guess it might be related to my young childhood as I had parents who would almost always read to my brother and me at bedtime. So possibly there's a part of my brain that has associated falling asleep to the sound of a voice speaking.
Mine does exactly the same thing. If she's on the couch watching a movie, she's a goner, but the moment she moves to bed, "it's too loud! Turn it down!" even when it's at 1/10th of the volume when she was drooling on the couch.
It was imperative for an ex girlfriend of mine to have a movie on; or she was unable to sleep. I prefer total darkness so that my body gains the maximum recuperative benefit.
Bob Ross videos on Hulu or YouTube are the most pleasant and soothing things I've ever watched. They usually knock me out in just a few minutes. And if you still can't fall asleep, you got to watch someone paint a pretty landscape.
I have been using audiobooks frequently to help me fall asleep. For me it has to be the right tone of voice and not a high pitched voicy or jerky style enunciation.
I start a random YouTube video and set SleepTimer [1] app to 15 minutes. The beauty of the app is that it softly fades the volume to 0 and turns the screen off by the end of 15 minutes. It has always helped me fall asleep!
I guess it might be related to my young childhood as I had parents who would almost always read to my brother and me at bedtime. So possibly there's a part of my brain that has associated falling asleep to the sound of a voice speaking.