Fall Asleep In 2 Minutes (Doctor Explains)

Beyond “sleep hygiene”, Dr. Siobhan Deshauer has insights to share:

Rest for your body and mind

First, do still do the basics. That means dimming/filtering lights for an hour before bed, lowering the room temperature a little, ensuring you have nice fresh sheets, not having alcohol or caffeine before bed, and getting out of bed if you’re not asleep within half an hour, to avoid associating being in bed with wakefulness.

Next, the extra tips:

• Progressive relaxation: tense and relax each muscle group from toes to head
• Box breathing: inhale, hold, exhale, and hold for 4 seconds each; helps calm the nervous system (it’s called “box breathing” because of the 4:4:4:4 setup)
• Diaphragmatic breathing: focus on belly breathing, with longer exhalation to activate the parasympathetic nervous system (note that this can, and even ideally should, be done at the same time as the previous)
• Cognitive shuffling: think of words starting with each letter of a chosen word while visualizing them (this is like “counting sheep”, but does the job better—the job in question being preventing your brain from moving to anything more strenuous or stressful)

For more on all of these plus some extra side-along advice, enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

Non-Sleep Deep Rest: A Neurobiologist’s Take ← a way to get many of the benefits of sleep, while awake

Take care!