How to fall asleep faster

A technique used by World War II pilots

No productivity, health or beauty routine is complete without a good night sleep. If you want to perform well and look good while doing so, you need to be well rested.

Having the time for a good sleep routine is a whole topic of itself. But what’s more frustrating than not having enough time to sleep? To go to bed on time, just to spend hours tossing and turning in it, like a sausage on a pan.

Many people suffer from difficulties falling asleep, or even insomnia. It often seems all the worries we have from our daily lives come pouring down our mind as we try to get some precious sleep.

The good news is that we don’t need to just take it. There are techniques for falling asleep easier. In this article, I’ll tell you about the one I have used, alongside some tips for practicing it and getting better.

Background

This method was developed by Bud Winter as he was commissioned by the U.S. military to help pilots fall asleep easier during the war. They were under enormous pressure, not knowing if they would survive the next day. Obviously, this affected their sleep, which, in turn, made them perform worse and put them in bigger risk to get shot down. Suddenly, not being able to sleep because our boss was mean to us yesterday doesn’t seem that big of a deal, does it ;)

Using Winter’s method, and after only around 6 weeks of practice, 95% of pilots reported they could consistently fall asleep within two minutes. Impressive, isn’t it? Then, let’s see what this method is all about!

The technique

Winter’s technique involves two general parts - the physical and the mental. The first one focuses on making sure your body and muscles are relaxed. The second, slows down your mind and ensures intrusive thoughts don’t creep back in.

Step 1: Get comfortable

That one is a no-brainer. At least if you’re in bed. However, Winter’s technique also covers cases when you are not. In such case, you should find a way to get as comfortable as possible. Obviously, the more comfortable you are, the easier the next steps will be. So, you know yourself, you should know what positions you like :)

Step 2: Relax your body

It’s generally problematic to fall asleep if your muscles are tense. Often times we don’t even realize how much they are flexed. So to ensure they are not, we need to consciously and deliberately relax them. I’ve heard people say you should start from bottom to top and I’ve heard others say the opposite. Winter’s method calls for the top down approach.

Starting from your forehead, bring your attention to your muscles, and slowly release any tension from them. Then move to your eyes, then cheeks and lips. You get the idea. Do this for each muscle group down to your toes.

Step 3: Clear your mind

The goal here is to remove all thoughts and worries from our minds. Especially problematic are thoughts involving any type of movement. If you think about walking in the mountain, for instance, just the thought of moving yourself is enough to put your body on alert. So avoid that.

Anyone who was ever lost sleep over some worrying would know that this is easier said than done. These thoughts have a way of creeping back in no matter how hard you try to clear your mind.

For this problem, Winter proposes two fictional situations to imagine yourself in.

The first one is to imagine yourself lying in a canoe on a calm and sunny day, floating on a serene lake, looking up at a bright, sunny sky, with just a few lazy clouds. You should keep that picture in your mind for at least 10 seconds and not let any other thoughts creep in.

After that, you imagine lying in a black, velvet hammock. This time everything’s dark and you cannot see anything. You let that thought linger again for 10 seconds.

Lastly, you repeat the following words in your mind for another ten seconds - “don’t think… don’t think…. don’t think“.

At some point along this sequence, you should fall asleep.

That’s it! Naturally, it takes training to make this work, especially as fast as 2 minutes. Over 90% of Winter’s pupils managed to achieve that goal within 6 months, allegedly.

Have you tried this, or some other technique for falling asleep? Let us know below.

My experience with Winter’s technique

The proof is in the pudding, right? Does Winter’s technique work?

I can attest that it works. It’s not an overnight panacea, but it does work. I think it can definitely be achieved within 6 weeks, very likely even faster. Not sure about the 2 minute limit, though. In general, I think it’s difficult to measure these fine metrics. Let me explain.

My sleeping

I’m not a pilot and I’m definitely not in danger of being shot down every day (not even by girls). Moreover, I cannot say I have big problems falling asleep either.

The vast majority of days, I fall asleep within minutes, without a problem. However, I sometimes wake up during the night and I have difficulties falling back to sleep. Sometimes it’s due to stress, sometimes I have something on my minds, and sometimes I invent something to occupy my mind. These situations are when I try Winter’s technique. Additionally, I’m a side sleeper and I find it difficult to fall asleep on my back. I want to learn to be on my back because it’s a healthier position and there are some situations when that’s way better - tent camping, for instance.

Learning Winter’s method

In these situations during the night, I started trying the technique. I cannot say it worked the first time, but it didn’t take long to see the difference. Definitely within the first 5-10 attempts, I managed to fall asleep, likely way before I would have if I was just trying to relax and clear my mind.

It definitely takes way longer than 2 minutes, though. It’s very plausible that this is also achievable, especially within 6 weeks. Unfortunately, I’m not there yet.

Also, the difficult thing about these 6 weeks is that, typically, you don’t try this every night. Only on nights when you cannot sleep. Which for me is not that often.

For the first successfully cases, I’d say, it would take you at least 10-15 minutes to fall asleep. Which is still valuable.

You will probably also need to run the two fictional scenarios in your head several times. My first few attempts, I relaxed my body, imagined the canoe, imagined the hammock, told myself to not think and… remained fully awake. What do you do at that point? Do you keep imagining being in a hammock? I personally didn’t. I went through the steps again and again, until I fell asleep. Not always all steps, though. After one of two tries, your body is usually already relaxed and you can move immediately to the second step.

Challenges following the method

Keeping other thoughts away

The difficulty for me came from the fact that it’s still somewhat difficult to keep intrusive thoughts out. You will find yourself on that damn canoe, still worrying about your work day the next day. The two fictional situations help you doze off, but you still need to focus on them, not on whatever is keeping you awake.

Keeping the fictional scenarios in your head

An extension to the previous challenge is to keep the vision of the canoe or hammock in your mind. They are nice environments, but my mind was still trying to veer off and go back to being anxious. It also somehow takes some mental capacity to keep a full environment like that in your mind.

One unexpected complication was that both visions have you lying down on your back. However, as I wrote earlier, I’m a side sleeper. So my imagination was struggling with the actual feeling of being on my side, but trying to imagine myself back down in a canoe or a hammock. That took some getting used to.

Other techniques

The two best weapons in your arsenal will always be:

• relaxing your body

• clearing your mind

If that already works for you, just do that. Count sheep, like in folklore. That’s also not a bad idea, I assume.

Your body will not fall asleep unless you relax. And it will not fall asleep if you are thinking about something. If it doesn’t do it naturally - help it.

Sleepy thoughts

There really is something about the visions Winter wants you to paint in your mind. They tend to relax you and put you to sleep. However, these are not the only ones. You can definitely find ones that work for you. They are mostly individual - just think of something that would calm you down. For instance, I have two. One is me looking far away through binoculars. I’m lying belly down, looking through them and I’m not moving. The second one is about me driving a car off-road. How did I come up with that? I have no idea. In fact, I’ve never been off-roading, and I don’t own binoculars, at least not anymore. But it works. It calms me down and puts me to sleep.

Especially the latter should not work. The literature about sleeping would often tell you to avoid thoughts that involve movement, as they are enough to put your body in a state of awareness and readiness to move. Which is also the first recommendation, I’d give you:

Find soothing thoughts that tend to make you sleepy, but avoid ones that involve movements - even a thought about moving is enough to keep you awake.

The other advice is to keep coming back to the same thoughts every time. After a while, your brain will associate these thoughts with sleeping, and will get ready for it. It’s like Pavlov’s law.

Use the same thoughts whenever you go to sleep. After a while, your brain will associate them with sleep

Your body is testing you

Have you ever been tossing and turning in your bed, trying to fall asleep and being constantly uncomfortable or feeling random itches on your body? Well… you got played.

I’ve read that as you lay in bed, your body is probing you to see if you are ready for sleeping. After laying stationary for a few minutes, it sends a sensation of itching to your brains and checks if you react to it. If you don’t, you are already almost out and your body goes to sleep. If you react, it’s a sign that your mind is still active and your body refuses to go to sleep. Makes sense, right?

So next time you get a weird itch while trying to fall asleep, ignore it. Stay stationary as if you feel nothing.

For me, it definitely works. So much so that if I start getting itchy, I see it as a sign that I’m almost ready go actually fall asleep. I then ignore the sensation, and usually fall asleep shortly after that.

Where to go from here

If you ever have problems falling asleep, I would strongly advise you to give these techniques a shot. You don’t lose anything. And if they work, even if you don’t manage to perfect them, it still gives you more sleep time than if you just lay there, questioning your life choices. And don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t work immediately - give it a bit of time.

Imagine a world where you don’t lose sleep over anxiety some fictional worries about tomorrow. Don’t deny yourself that.

If you liked this article, consider subscribing - I write about tech, leadership and becoming a better self.

See you next time!