Lights out and time to go to bed; but how long will it be before you actually fall asleep? Some like to drift off, while for others, it’ll be a night-long crawl no matter how comfy you manage to get. 

As we know, there are many things that manage to limit sleep. Factors like stress, anxiety, loud noises and often lack of comfort all manage to murky the efficiency of sleep. But what if your urge to sleep was so powerful, that you were able to overcome these factors and secure successful sleep every time?

Sounds like an impossibility, even to the most practised of sleepers. However, there is a fabled technique that can bring you to sound asleep in under 10 seconds, and this fascinating topic is going to be the centrepiece of our discussion today.

The Military Method

So as the title suggests, we’re going to be delving into a famous technique called ‘The Military Method’, which has the power to impose sleep in less than a quarter of a minute.

According to various sources, the technique was born somewhere out in the United States military. As we can only imagine, a day in the military is a world away from the peace and quiet of a more typical living, where opportunities for sleep are few and far between. 

With constant noise and stimulations within their immediate environment, The Military Method evolved out of an environment where sleep disruption was king. 

Sleep is of course incredibly important for life, and forms a major cornerstone in health and wellbeing; boosting elements like focus, decision-making and energy that will in themselves be key for operating within the armed forces for example. Sleep is a necessity for living that can’t be ignored.

So in such a disruptive environment, The Military Method seeks to find a middle ground where the two work in tandem. Beginning in any position or setting of your choosing here’s exactly how it’s done:

Step 1

Begin by relaxing all the muscles in your face, and try to focus on the muscles around the jaw and in the forehead; let everything come to ease. 

Step 2 

Bring this calm down into your shoulders and through your arms and to your hands as you focus on letting all the tensions in your body fade away.

Step 3

Continue the tide of relaxation into your chest and gut, exhaling gently as you do so. 

Step 4

Start to relax the muscles in your legs, thighs and calves as the feeling travels down to your feet. 

Step 5

With your body feeling light as a feather, the next step is to clear the mind in a form of mini-meditation. Picture any kind of scene that’s relaxing to you, or think a calming thought. Try to focus on this picture of peace for 10 seconds; a solid image in your mind. 

Step 6

If step 5 fails to find you asleep, try to think of a word or topic repeatedly for 10 seconds. The technique used by the military recommends voicing the words ‘don’t think’ over and over again in your mind; so think don’t think. 

Step 7

If performed correctly, you should be sound asleep by step 7, regardless of the stimulations that surround you or fill your mind.

The technique is founded on breathing and muscle relaxation and fosters a visualised step-by-step approach to preparing the body for sleep. So by all means, if you’re not successful the first time, go back and try, try, try again. 

And remember, it’s not an easy technique to master, and you might not be successful the first night around. In most cases where people are just starting out for the first time, it’ll probably take a couple of tries each night before you notice any changes. 

Practice and repetition are key to The Military Method. This is because the body, and sleep, in particular, are naturally inclined to follow patterns, especially patterns that engage the body physically in some kind of way. 

Good sleep must be cultivated by even better habits, and if practised often and regularly, masters of The Military Method will come to know that its effects become easier to achieve over time. 

The force of habit is so powerful within the body, that at its most effective, The Military Method is able to trigger sleep in just 10 seconds.

The effects are meant to bypass any kind of stimulation that comes their way, including the effects of caffeine and loud noises in the background; while the technique has also been shown to be hugely effective when trying to sleep sitting up.

The Run-Up to bedtime

The Military Method is highly recommended for those who constantly battle with the likes of insomnia and find themselves spending more time trying to get to sleep than actually sleeping.

A lack of sleep brings about feelings of anxiety, and can highly alter our emotions and how we perceive and interact with the world, which can in turn make it even harder to sleep. 

But as it’s so focussed on breathing, muscles and emotions, there is a whole range of different things you can incorporate with this renowned method in preparation for bedtime. Some of our favourites include:

• This award-winning SMUG 3D Contoured Blackout Sleep Mask provides instant access to sleep-inducing darkness, all while being totally eyelash-friendly with its highly-devised domed design. 

• Relaxing the muscles is at the core of The Military Method, which is why this super Soothing Body Wrap comes as a must-have for muscle pain relief. Heated or cooled, the wrap works with any muscle group to manage those sleep-depriving muscle tensions just before bedtime. 

• As something similar we’ve explored before, the 4-7-8 breathing technique is quite similar to what we’ve discussed so far and works by eliminating toxins from the body and improving the effectiveness of many biological nighttime processes. Explore the 4-7-8, alongside more fascinating breathing techniques, here. 

• The Military Method works so much better with the botanical benefits of this Lavender Sleep Spray. Lavender is packed with a type of chemical called linalool, which when inhaled, naturally induces a calming effect within the brain; perfect for finding that picture of peace during the technique. 

The need to nap crops up in many usual spaces and they’re not always in close reach of the comfort of a bed. What’s really great about many of these recommendations is that they work so flexibly around the sleep cycle, and you’ll be able to rest assured that you’ll always have their benefits to turn to.

So in conclusion of our findings, we note that it’s vital to remember that good sleep balances on many different factors, all of which must work together night after night, and most importantly, they must work for you. 

As pioneers in the worldwide movement toward better sleep, SMUG hopes that everyone becomes a master of The Military Method, as it is very possible to find sleep within the short space of 10 seconds, but only if both your mind and body are positioned in the right place each night. 

To discover more about our mission to make everyone’s dreams come true, find our full collection here. 

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