Are you sick and tired of turning in your bed when you’re ready to go to sleep? To easily fall asleep has been a challenge for me for many years and I feel a little jealous every time my husband starts to snore few minutes after we turn off the light. And I always wonder how he manages to fall asleep so peacefully after being in so many stressful situations when he served 20 years in the military.

One day he told me that the military has developed a technique to help soldiers fall asleep even in most difficult situations such as on the battlefield in order to get a good night’s rest.

This military secret to fall asleep quickly was developed in 1986 for the US army by Bud Winter who wrote a book about it called Relax and Win: Championship Performance.

It was first designed to help the pilots get a good night sleep so they don’t make life-threatening mistakes due to exhaustion. After only 6 weeks of practice, 96% of the soldiers could fall asleep within 2 minutes.

After trying this two-minute method for few weeks, I was amazed how easily and quickly I felt asleep without the need to pop a sleeping pill. This technique combines deep breathing, muscle relaxation and visualization to help the body get ready to fall asleep fast.

Anyways if you are ready to surrender to sleep here’s how to do it:

First get comfy and start by breathing deeply and slowly to relax all your head muscles. This means relax the muscles in your face, including jaw, tongue and the muscles around the eyes. Just let your face feel like it’s sliding down with gravity.

Next drop your shoulders as far down as they’ll go. Relax the back of your neck. Take a deep breath through the nose, hold it for a sec and exhale through the mouth.

Now focus on your arms, both upper and lower arms. Just relax them one side at a time. If you are right handed, start with the right side first. Same goes if you are left handed.

Inhale deeply through the nose and exhale through the mouth to allow your chest and legs to relax. Start from your thighs and consciously go down all the way to the feet. Do one leg at a time same as with the arms. By the time you’re finished your feet should feel like clay.

Now that the body is fully relaxed, you need to spend 10 seconds to switch off the thoughts and clear your mind. Mr. Winter recommends trying one of the following exercises:

  1. Picture yourself lying in a canoe on a calm lake. You look at the clear, blue sky above you on a warm spring day.
  2. Imagine yourself lying in a massive, black velvet hammock in a completely dark room. Hold this visualization for 10 seconds.
  3. If you have hard time visualizing, then you can repeat to yourself “Don’t think. Don’t think” for 10 seconds to blank out the other thoughts.

And basically that is it. Now that your body and mind are fully relaxed you will fall asleep immediately.

It may sound ridiculous at first when you start doing it. Maybe it won’t work for you for the first few nights as quickly as you hoped. This technique is proven to work for 96 per cent of people who tried it every night for six weeks of practice. So keep pushing yourself through feeling silly and by the end of the first week, you will notice something changing at bedtime.

I can’t promise this method will work flawlessly every night, but practicing is a worthwhile investment, because once you have it down, you can get restful sleep anywhere, which will dramatically improve your quality of life and you won’t have to rely on supplements or medication anymore.

Are you ready to take the challenge? You have nothing to lose anyways!