If you lie awake at night, struggling to nod off – you’ll want to try the military sleep method.
Getting down to sleep quickly is a prized skill in the military, where the shifts can be long and dangerous, and the bunks loud and uncomfortable.
So it’s no surprise the US military apparently came up with a genius method for falling asleep.
It’s been shared recently by Justin Agustin on TikTok – he’s a fitness coach so he knows the value of a well-built regimen.
The system starts with you in bed lying in a comfortable position and promises to have you asleep in two minutes, once you’ve had some practice in it.
First, you need to relax your eyes and jaw while focusing on your breathing to get nice and calm, then you can move on to the next phase.
Relaxing your neck, shoulders, hands and fingers, you have to start imagining a warm sensation in your scalp, one that slowly starts to spread down your body.
As the warmth flows from your head down through your arms to your fingertips, down your chest, to your thighs and all the way to your feet, you should clear your mind as much as possible.
This could mean imagining yourself somewhere like a clear lake on a day with blue sky and no one around you, or lying in a hammock comfortably in a pitch black room.
Agustin says that if you find yourself struggling to maintain that mental clarity, you can just repeat the mantra ‘don’t think’ to yourself until you get re-centered.
Apparently the process can take up to six weeks of nightly practice to get used to it, but if you take that time then you could have a 96% chance of finding you fall asleep quickly, based on other people’s experiences.
And the comment section seems to confirm this, with one TikToker writing: “I’m a military brat and was taught this. I also had a veteran as a psychology teacher in college who taught this. It definitely works.”
Equally, those of us who’ve tried different sleep methods will know that forcing yourself to sleep is super challenging, so be prepared for some frustrating nights as you get used to the military method – if you can master it, though, you’ll start to feel like something of a sleep superhero.
