GP reveals the key mistake that’s stopping you from falling asleep – and could be worsening insomnia

It can be torturous struggling to nod off when you suffer with insomnia—but trying to use trending online sleep hacks to get some shuteye could be making things worse.

If you’re one of the 23million Britons with the condition, you’ll likely try anything to finally secure a night of restorative kip.

This is the warning from Dr David Garley, a GP at The Better Sleep Clinic who diagnoses and treats sleep disorders. 

But while it may be the last thing you want to hear, he said: ‘If you try too hard to fall asleep you often actually sleep worse.

‘As soon as you try to start fixing it, and you try too hard, that’s often when your insomnia starts to accelerate.

‘It does seem a bit paradoxical, but sometimes it’s about taking your foot off the accelerator and actually trying to do less.’

His warning comes after several ‘foolproof methods’ which claim to provide a quick fix for insomnia have gone viral on social media, the latest being the military sleep method.

The trend, which claims to help you sleep within just two minutes, was back in vogue after it picked up traction on TikTok, with some videos on the method racking up thousands of views. 

It was first called the ‘military sleep method’ by Bud Winter a sprint coach who studied psychology and wrote the book ‘Relax and Win: Championship Performance’.

In the book he claimed it was developed for the United States Navy Pre-Flight School, to help pilots fall asleep instantly in stressful situations.

The technique was explained by Dr Dean J. Miller, a sleep scientist at Central Queensland University in Australia, in The Conversation.

‘Reports of the military sleep method can vary slightly depending on the source, but three components remain consistent,’ he wrote.

The first step, he explained is ‘progressive muscle relaxation’, which involves ‘contracting and relaxing muscles of the face, then the shoulders and arms, before moving down through the chest and legs’.

The next step, he said is ‘controlled breathing’ which is described as ‘breathing is slowed and controlled, emphasising longer exhalations’. 

And the final step he explains is ‘visualisation’ which involves ‘imagining a calm environment, such as floating on calm water or lying in a quiet field’.

While there are different variations of the hack, typically, Dr Garley says each of these steps are done for approximately 10 seconds.

Some versions of the sleep hack online don’t end there. They include a final step for overthinkers, repeatedly thinking ‘don’t think’ until you fall asleep.

This was included in the version that a man tried in a video posted to TikTok to the account @stanbr0wney that’s been viewed more than 14,600 times.

In the clip, he explained ‘the visualisation of a peaceful place didn’t work for me at all’ but this final, extra, step did the trick.

‘Repeating the words “don’t think, don’t think, don’t think” is the last thing I remember before falling asleep,’ he said. 

‘It wasn’t two minutes, but it took me less than five minutes to understand this method and fall asleep.’

It may be successful for some people, Dr Miller explained, because of its similarities with cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I).

The therapy is sometimes offered with a face-to-face therapist or through an online self-help programme, says the NHS. 

But he explained that it is unrealistic for us to fall asleep within just two minutes, and that if you can it isn’t necessarily a good thing.

‘Constantly falling asleep within five minutes can be a sign of excessive daytime sleepiness,’ he warned.

‘For civilians working nine-to-five and maintaining a regular schedule, falling asleep within 20 minutes is considered normal.’

If you’re really struggling, Dr Garley recommends getting professional support instead of relying on trends.

His prescription is something called sleep restriction which he explained ‘almost always’ is a central part of CBT-I.

‘It is the standard treatment for insomnia recommended by the NHS, the British Sleep Society and the American Association of Sleep Medicine,’ he added. 

‘There’s lots of components to it, but, nearly always, it involves pushing your bedtime either a little bit later, or a lot later.’ 

In practice, he said: ‘Sometimes they restrict your time in bed to five hours, so you’re going to bed really late, not sleeping enough.

‘Then you’re waking up really tired managing to stay up all day, then getting into bed really late again.

‘What happens on day three or four is that you’re so sleep deprived that you’re getting into bed, falling asleep straight away sleeping through the night.’

This ‘indirect method’ works, he said because while ‘we don’t have direct control over sleep, we do have an awful lot of indirect control’.

‘One of the main systems that controls our sleep is the idea that the longer we’re awake the more sleepy we feel,’ he explained.

This is because of a substance called ‘adenosine’, which he explained your body makes while you’re awake – ‘the more you have, the sleepier you feel,’ he said.

‘The longer you’re awake, the more sleepy you feel. So, while you can’t make yourself fall asleep on command, you can make yourself stay up later.

‘If you got up two hours early, and went to bed two hours late, you would probably be getting into bed with a much higher sleep drive.

‘This means you’re more likely to fall asleep quicker and stay asleep. It’s not direct control, but it’s a lot of indirect control.’

Symptoms of insomnia include finding it hard to go to sleep, waiting up during the night and feeling tired after waking up, says the NHS.