Everyone has a little sleeping trick which proves itself to be more or less effective. According to the Daily Mail, a radical method that was already revealed in the 1981 book Relax and Win: Championship Performance has been rediscovered.
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A military technique to defeat sleeping problems
Insomnia, whether it is a problem of merely falling asleep or experiencing sleep interruptions, affects a third of men and women in their forties and fifties. And the news is even worse for women over 65, as that figure shoots up to 65%. Simply put, it is not an isolated problem and its numerous consequences are definitely a cause for concern.
Indeed, chronic lack of sleep or poor sleep quality can lead to serious health issues: diabetes, cardiovascular disease and changes in brain structure.
The US military decided to address this predicament in a proactive way. Rather than waiting for their pilots to make more mistakes due to fatigue, they developed a technique allowing them to fall asleep in under 2 minutes so that the pilots could recover faster and more efficiently. The method is so effective, in fact, that the military can even use it whilst deployed in areas of combat.
Based on a combination of muscle relaxation, breathing techniques and visualisation exercises, this method requires training each night for 6 weeks in order to see results.
Read more:
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⋙ Sleeping: What are the risks of sleeping less than 7 hours?
⋙ Sleep: The reason why some people love to nap could be rooted down to science
Try this military technique at home
Lying down, start by relaxing the muscles of the face by concentrating on relaxing the tongue, unclenching the jaw and loosening the area around the eyes. From this step follows the lower part of the upper body, lowering the shoulders as low as possible, all the while relaxing each arm, feeling the tension leave the top all the way to the bottom, one arm after the other.
Breathing is key in this technique so one must make a conscious note of its ebb and flow. Thus, expire slowly and deeply while releasing any pressure felt in the chest. Much like with the upper body, relax each leg, feeling the sensations from the thighs down to the feet.
Once the whole body is relaxed, hold the position for 10 seconds.
After the physical part comes the mental relaxation. Completely empty the mind of all thoughts. This exercise is not as straightforward as it seems when everyday concerns can quickly pollute this quest for serenity. In order to achieve this, the US military recommends the following 3 solutions:
- Visualising oneself at the edge of a lake or in a canoe on calm water with just the blue sky above one’s head.
- Imagining oneself comfortably settled in a black velvet hammock and in a blacked out room.
- Repeating as many times as necessary for 10 seconds: ‘Do not think about anything, do not think about anything, do not think about anything’.
After 6 weeks of training, this technique is apparently effective in 96% of cases.
