People who's home is next to the train tracks or airport, after a while don't hear the loud noise at midnight. they get used to it and the sleeping brain acknowledges the noise without waking up the sleeper.
Then you have the sleeping brain that hears the newborn baby crying at midnight and wakes up the sleeper at the slightest baby noise. The brain acknowledges the noise and triggers a wake-up alert.
Lousy sleep in the wood is because the noises are new, and the brain is not desensitized to it, so the caveman brain triggers a primal alert to wake up, because you might be getting eaten by a predator or another caveman.
So how do we get our brain to deal with false alerts?
1. is it really a false alert? 99.99% yes, but 0.001% deserve your attention.
2. block the noise with ear plugs. Also muffles scout noises if there's an urgency.
3. sedatives. choose your poison. I like a little Yagermeister. Some considerations for dehydration due to alcohol, headache the next day. scouts policy/alc.
4. Accept that its normal to wake up 3x per night. so plan to nap and meditate rather than deep sleep.
5. sleeping on a camp pad is no substitute for that expensive mattress at home.
6. You may be missing the re-assuring snoring of your bed mate.
7. At home, you watch TV after/with dinner, till about midnight. on the trail it gets dark by 6pm/8pm. and your brain is quietly protesting the absence of TV sensory.
8. you might be worried about the family at home, the job workload, the upcoming pee break...
9. consider sensory deprevation. ear plugs, pull your beanie over your eyes.
10. plan ahead for wind, and stake down tight any fluttering tarps or rainfly.
11. My scouts are syrup juice addicts, sugar and caffeine junkies, sad. They are revved up. They are noisy. exhausting stressful. Not a nature zen experience for me. If you have any influence over the menu, cut out the sugars, caffeinated sodas, and marshmellows. That may help.
12. consider relaxing camomille tea, its has no caffeine, which is different from de-caf that still has reduced caf.
melatonin works for many, but for me it made me dizzy and caused vertigo. perhaps its supposed to work that way. but it weirded me out. I stopped it years ago.
also amusing to try, download/record the audio from a C-SPAN congress session about budgets, play it on your iphone/ear buds, it willput you to sleep in absence of the TV) and you might subliminally become a Federal Reserve chairman financial genius in your sleep.
I realize I sound cranky and crusty... get'off my lawn you young hooligans.