Has a ripped athlete running down a mud road ever shouted health advice through your phone? Sometimes these videos are motivational and get you off the couch to begin exercising. Sometimes they’re educational. But can their advice help the residents?
Let's see what it means to follow the “military sleep regimen”. There are Different versions Circling social media, including these claims it may assist you to quit in two minutes.
It definitely looks appealing.
I do research on sleep and the body clock. And in fieldwork, I've been a component of many high-performance environments, helping athletes and military personnel combat fatigue and jet lag and sleep higher.
Why the Military Sleep Method Can Work for Soldiers But can it give you the results you want too?
Just 3 steps to sleep?
The Military Sleep Method, because the name suggests, is supposed to assist military personnel prime their bodies for sleep, whatever the environment.
The method is mentioned first Credit The book is named Sports Performance Relax and win.
Reports of military sleep patterns may vary barely depending on the source. But three key components remain constant:
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Progressive muscle leisure: Contract and chill out the facial muscles before moving all the way down to the chest and legs, then the shoulders and arms
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Controlled respiratory: Breathing is slow and controlled, emphasizing long exhalations
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concept: Visualizing a relaxed environment, resembling swimming on calm water or lying in a relaxed field.
Is it science or folklore?
As you may expect, the world's militaries aren't publishing their sleep techniques in open access journals. So there isn’t a specific validation of the military sleep method in mainstream science.
So, let's compare this to the beneficial first-line treatment for insomnia, generally known as Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT-I, for insomnia.
It includes several key components:
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Cognitive Therapy: Challenging unrealistic beliefs and anxieties about sleep
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Stimulus Control: Strengthening the bed by avoiding non-sleep activities in bed and only lying down during sleep
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Sleep restriction: Limiting time in bed initially to extend sleep pressure
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Sleep hygiene: Maintaining healthy routines and environments, resembling limiting caffeine and alcohol, keeping a consistent schedule, and making the bedroom a cushty place, not related to other activities.
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Relaxation Techniques: Using techniques, resembling mindfulness, progressive muscle leisure, or respiratory, to ease your sleep and assist you to go to sleep.
Sound familiar?
See the similarities between the Military Sleep Method and CBT-I? Some contexts are similar. For example, soldiers could also be sleep deprived, and sleep restriction is an element of CBT-I. They are also trained to have strong control over their thoughts, and CBT-I uses cognitive therapy.
The differences between the 2 also relate to the high performance military environment. For example, defense personnel can have no control over their sleep hygiene.
In other words, consider the Military Sleep Method as sharing facets of CBT-I, but tailored to defense personnel and specializing in three things they’ll control.
Can you actually go to sleep in 2 minutes?
Based on these similarities, it's entirely possible that the steps outlined in The Military Sleep Method could help most of us go to sleep faster. But will we actually need to go to sleep in two minutes?
Unfortunately for the ego, most of us aren’t high-performing employees. It is unlikely that we are going to experience the psychological and physical demands that the military sleep method was intended to have. So for the common citizen, falling asleep in two minutes is an unrealistic goal.
As a general guidelinefalling asleep consistently inside eight minutes is taken into account abnormal, and falling asleep consistently inside five minutes could also be an indication of excessive daytime sleepiness.
For residents who work nine to 5 and maintain a daily schedule, falling asleep inside ten to twenty minutes is taken into account normal.
But in the event you're a shift employee, a brand new parent, or have a diagnosed sleep problem, these numbers may not apply.
So, should I sleep like a soldier?
Soldiers are trained extensively in how their physiology works in difficult environments. The goal of this training is to provide them more control over their bodies, including how best to go to sleep.
The Soldier Sleep Method is an interesting method to package healthy sleep techniques. In practice it’s a mix of tools already included in sleep science (leisure, respiratory and visualization).
Trying it won't hurt your sleep, but will move the goalposts away from the two-minute goal.
If you go to sleep inside two minutes, and begin worrying once you don't, that's an excessive amount of trouble. May make sleeping difficult.