[mike463]

I learned to relax many years ago using one of these that a friend had:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000E22DFE

It's a galvanic skin response gadget. There are others (I got one from radio shack too). Search for GSR.

It basically lowers a tone when you relax. It takes almost no time at all to learn to relax with the immediate feedback the device offers.

When you lower the tone very low, you have basically relaxed your whole body and can easily fall asleep.

I have no idea if this is like meditation or not, since I don't know how to meditate. It could be, because you concentrate on the tone the device makes.

[moolave]

It's almost like it, and that is an awesome gadget. You basically lower your body's frequencies - more like into a theta state. And that's when you can easily get into superlearning mode and/or eventually fall asleep.