「寝る前祈り」を無駄にしてみたけど眠れなかった / "I uselessly said a "prayer before sleep", but anyways I couldn't sleep" この表現は自然ですか？

Hello! I'm trying to write lyrics in japanese
歌詞を作ってみるよ！

I want to translate this to japanese:
"I uselessly said a "prayer before sleep", but anyways I couldn't sleep"
「寝る前祈り」を無駄にしてみたけど眠れなかった

寝る前祈り is a word I found on internet, I'm not sure it is a full sustantive by itself, or actually a sentence. If I read it, I understand "Payer for say before sleep", I mean, I understand all that as a "Kind" of prayer, like "A prayer you say before eat", in this situation "寝る前~" will describe the object "祈り" I understand something like that.
I think if I say "寝る前に祈りをしてみた" it could mean "Before sleep, I said a prayer" and that's not the thing that I want to say.
I want to find a "kind of prayer" that you can say anywhere or anytime.
In the image I have, it's a person just walking the street praying for be able to get asleep. I think 寝る前祈り without に can make the diference, and mean "A pray that you say before sleep" anyay, the "content" of that prayer can be just the wish of "get asleep" Can you understand it?
It is because the person who says it actually did not get asleep, if I say "寝る前に" maybe the context will describe someone who actually got asleep, and that's not the situation of the person. The situation is a person who can't sleep, then he says a prayer, but he couldn't sleep anyway, he prayed with no results.
Of course, 寝る前祈り will give the image of a person praying before go to bed, but the context of my lyrics is a person walking the streets, can I use 寝る前祈り even if the text says it is happening outside?
Also, I thought about "眠れる祈り" as an option, could this mean "A prayer for get asleep" "A prayer you say wishing you can fall asleep"
But I don't know if it's correct.

Other question is the use of 無駄に, maybe can I use this to say I did something without results? I think it's usually used to say "waste time"
So maybe can I use for say "I tried something uselessly" or "I tried something with no results" is it ok?

I hope you can help me, If I make a mistake, pleas tell me.
ミスがあったら伝えてください。