Try This Military Meditation Routine To Fall Asleep Fast

One mid-century relaxation technique, developed in the US Navy Pre-Flight School, supposedly works within minutes. It may not be magic, but it seems like a pretty good way to relax your body and mind.

The basics, described in Relax and Win and summarized on Medium, are to relax your body, part by part, and then attempt to totally clear your mind for ten seconds. Here’s a script:

• Relax the muscles in your face, including your tongue, jaw, and the muscles around your eyes.

• Drop your shoulders as low as they’ll go. Then relax your upper and lower arm on one side, and then the other.

• Breathe out, and relax your chest.

• Finally, relax your legs, first thighs and then calves.

Take about a minute and a half to go through the list, relaxing every body part fully, and then try to clear your mind for ten seconds. As Art of Manliness reports, Bud Winter (who designed the program) suggests you pick one of these mental images:

• Lying in a canoe on a calm lake, nothing but blue sky above you.

• Snuggled 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.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because a similar sequence — relaxing your body part-by-part — is the basis of almost every sleep meditation trick out there. So, does this work? Almost certainly yes.

But is this trick really the best or fastest way to fall asleep? The current US Air Force website has a bunch of sleep recommendations, with no mention of a specific, mandatory two-minute script. The US Army, meanwhile, advises that “The bottom line when it comes to getting restful sleep is doing what works for you. There is no magical formula other than listening to your body.”