The first method that you can use is the Military Method.
In the second world war, the US military generals realized that if fighter pilots didn't get enough sleep, it would result in very bad decision making that will lead to catastrophic outcomes. This meant there would be higher chances of them being shut down by the enemy or shooting their own guys by accident. The generals realized that this had to become their main priority. The US military brought in Naval Officer Bud Winter to teach army men how to sleep quicker despite any distractions at the scene.
Winter was a successful football coach who worked with a psychology professor in college who formed techniques to help athletes relax and still compete under pressure. After just 6 weeks of practice, more than 90 percent of army pilots could fall asleep in 2 minutes. Despite gunfire noise, bombs, and even sitting up - these badass pilots can still sleep and rejuvenate.
The first step in doing the Military Method is to get into a comfortable position. This would not be an issue if you're already in bed - so choose your most comfortable position to do this method.
The second step is by relaxing your face. When you fully relax your face, you send a physical signal to your body that you're comfortable and that you're winding down and ready to sleep. So close your eyes, and relax your cheeks, tongue, and jaw. As you start doing this, you'll notice that your breathing starts to deepen and slow as well.
Step number 3 is to drop your shoulders. Let go of both your hands completely. Let the back of your neck relax. Continue taking deep breaths and let go of any remaining tensions in the shoulders, neck, and jaws.
The fourth step is to let your legs go limp. Don't move a single muscle but feel your quad sink down getting heavier and heavier. Do this for your calves, ankles, and foot.
These four steps are quite similar to meditation. This is also called body scanning. It entails not moving any muscle in your entire body but using your mind to feel every part from the face down to your feet.
The fifth step is to clear your mind. If you don't particularly understand what this means - it is basically to stop thinking about the past, and the future. Thinking about what happened yesterday and what happens tomorrow keeps us in this loop of worry, anxiety, or even excitement and will prevent us from falling asleep. Clearing your mind means to stop thinking about anything and focusing on doing your body scan or focusing on listening to your deep breaths.
If you're not quite good at doing this, you can repeat saying "Don't think, don't think" in your head until you fall asleep. Doing these things stops you from thinking about the past or the future and will clear your mind. And that's it basically for the military method, it works fairly quick for most people if they are able to focus properly, but there are still three life hacks you can use to help you sleep.
The second strategy you can use is Fiction. Reading helps put your consciousness on another plane, which as I said before, distracts you from thinking too much about the past or the future. This will help you relax. Think about children and how reading bedtime stories to them makes them fall asleep really quickly.
Toddlers and even school-age children don't particularly care about yesterday or tomorrow. Being in a fictional world makes you unable to think logically of anything thus helping you relax. It doesn't really matter what book you're reading. It doesn't have to be a best-seller.
Any random fiction book would do. If you have Amazon Prime, then you can easily go to Prime Reading and pick a random book. Or if you're on Audible, you can use that to listen to a fiction book while closing your eyes and doing your body scanning and deep breaths at the same time. You can put a timer on your Audible to stop playing after 30 minutes, and I guarantee you'd definitely get knocked out before those 30 minutes are up.
The third technique you can use to fall asleep is the one hour night routine. A night routine is just as similar to a morning routine - but in reverse. A morning routine entails doing a certain number of tasks that helps you get ready for the day, while a night routine will help you wind down for the day and get you ready to sleep. It also makes you prepare for the next day.
Doing a night routine includes three specific goals. The first is to wind down so you feel relaxed when it's time to go to bed. The second is to actually get yourself to bed on time. And lastly, to do a few things that will help you prepare for the next day. To complete all these goals, we have to go through a few steps.
First is you need to decide on what time you're going to sleep and to decide how many hours of sleep you need to get. According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults should get at least 8 hours of sleep every night to be able to make better decisions and overall decrease chances of getting conditions like heart problems, diabetes, and cancer.
The second step is to create a Wind Down Alarm. You want to set this for about an hour before your target sleep time. As soon as you enter this phase, you should also make it a rule to be done looking at any screens for the night. According to research, artificial light can ruin your circadian rhythm and the quality of your sleep. You can just simply stop using your phones when you're trying to wind down.
The next step is to clean up any mess in your room and make it look nice to help you want to go to sleep. Nobody wants to sleep in a messy room, with clutter all over. The idea is to reset your sleeping space so you'd be more attracted to the concept of sleeping. Think about checking into fancy hotels, and looking at their bedroom setups. Dim light, king-sized beds with linens styled in some sort of fashion. No clutter to be seen. Doesn't it make you want to just jump in bed and fall asleep?
We also included preparing for the next day as part of our routine. Doing this particular step makes you worry less about tomorrow and therefore gives you that peace of mind that when you get up in the morning, everything will be in its place. You can do this by laying out your clothes and do some ironing for the next day. If you need to go somewhere, you can pack up your bag ahead or pack your lunch ahead.
You can also look at your calendar, and categorize any tasks you have for the next day. You can also do some journaling as part of your night routine. You can write your journals in Notion, Evernote, or even in a standard notebook using a pretty simple format which is Morning, Afternoon, and Night, and what this basically means is writing down the highlights of those times. It could either be just one or two sentences per section, the important thing is they are the highlight of your day so when you look back to that day 30 years from now, you will still have a picture of what that day looks and feels like for you.
The last step you could do in your night routine is to brush your teeth. Feeling clean and fresh makes you feel better about going to bed and staying in bed. Now, after you've done all these things in your night routine, you can go straight to bed now and do the military method or listen to an Audible fiction book. Or you could read from your Kindle if you have one. Doesn't particularly matter which option you want to do.
Finally, the last sleep hack you can use is to control caffeine intake. The most-documented effects of caffeine on sleep include prolonged sleep latency, lesser deep sleep time, and more frequent awakenings. The effects of caffeine on sleep depend not only on the amount of caffeine taken near bedtime, but the total amount ingested for the entire day. Caffeine consumed closer to bedtime has the greatest potential for sleep disruption.
A 2013 study suggests that caffeine consumed up to 6 hours beforehand may reduce total nightly sleep and reduce sleep quality. You can drink coffee early in the morning, to give you that boost of productivity for the day and you can probably have a second cup at around 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning but don't have any more after lunch. If you work in the office or in any complex work environment such as the hospital, drinking too much coffee makes you feel overwhelmed, tensed, and illogically worried about little insignificant things that you shouldn't worry about. By making it a rule to cut down caffeine intake to only in the morning, you can improve your latency in falling asleep, and the quality of those periods of sleep.
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