Lying in bed and unable to fall asleep, maybe it's time to try this 5-minute ritual that can work wonders on your sleep.
Can't fall asleep? Research from Baylor University found that this 5-minute ritual can help you fall asleep faster. And not only that, your sleep will also be of better quality thanks to this. Who doesn't know the evenings when we lie in bed, and all sorts of thoughts run through our heads? Cancel lunch, return books to the library, etc.
This only increases our stress levels, which is the last thing you really need before bed. Fortunately, scientists at Baylor University have found a way to turn off those anxious thoughts and fall asleep faster.
Baylor University researchers wanted to investigate the importance of different activities on sleep. They included 57 young people in the research, who were instructed to write a list of tasks for the coming days or a list of tasks they have completed in the past few days. The volunteers slept in a lab where researchers could measure their eye movements and brain wave activity, but were not allowed to use their phones.
Can't fall asleep? It's a 5-minute bedtime ritual
The results of the research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, concluded that not all bedtime writing is the same. Those who made to-do lists before bed were able to fall asleep nine minutes faster than those who wrote about past events. The quality of the lists was also important; the more tasks there were and the more detailed the to-do lists, the faster the writers fell asleep.
On the other hand, those who wrote long lists of accomplishments took longer to fall asleep than those who paid less attention to past activities.
The authors of the study are so convinced that writing down tasks for the future "relieves" our thoughts, which allows us to fall asleep faster. For example, if you write down a reminder to go to the library, you won't have to think about it any further, which will allow you to relax and fall asleep faster.
Nine minutes of extra sleep may not sound like a huge amount, but it really shouldn't be underestimated. "Nine extra minutes of sleep each night can really make a difference," says lead study author Michael Scullin, director of the Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Laboratory at Baylor.
