The US Military Has A Battlefield-Proof Method For Getting To Sleep

If counting sheep or reading a boring book before bed isn't knocking you out at night then you may need some military assistance.

A simple US Army method is said to virtually guarantee help to anyone when it comes to falling asleep - and within just 120 seconds.

The method is revealed in a book titled Relax and Win: Championship Performance and is said to have a 96 percent success rate of helping people to nod off - even on the battlefield.

Which presumably also suggests the technique can hold up against your partner's snores or those late night fears about what you actually did last Saturday night.

The system was developed by military leaders when they realised that many of their pilots were making horrendous and avoidable decisions due to stress and subsequent sleeplessness.

They found that even when pilots had clocked off that they still couldn't relax enough to fall asleep.

However, they found an extremely effective four-step solution. Er, not that I'd know. Honest, I've not been napping in work or anything.

Step One: Relax your facial muscles. That includes your jaw, tongue, and the muscles around your eyes.

Step Two: Quit hunching those shoulders! Drop them as low as possible before relaxing your upper and lower arm on one side, then the other.

Step Three: Breathe out and relax your chest. Then, relax your legs, starting with the thighs and then your lower legs.

Step Four: After ten seconds of deep relaxation, completely clear your mind.

For this final step, the book's author Lloyd Bud Winter suggests picturing one of these three images to help you hit slumber town.

• Lying in a canoe on a calm lake with nothing but blue sky above you
• Being snuggled up in a black velvet hammock in a pitch-black room
• Saying 'don't think, don't think, don't think' over and over for ten seconds

Winter doesn't mention inviting Tom Hardy or Emilia Clarke (or whoever rocks your boat) into any of these scenarios, but it definitely can't hurt to throw them into the mix too, right?

Apparently the formerly secret method has a near 100 percent success rate after a few weeks of practice.

So in time you should be able to fall asleep anytime and just about anywhere.

With two thirds of adults in the UK suffering from disrupted sleep and as many as 16 million struggling with sleepless nights, this military technique could be just the ticket to get us all sleeping soundly again.

Now if you don't mind, we have an imaginary black velvet hammock we'd desperately like to get back to.

Words: Amy Roberts