Can you truly fall asleep in two minutes with this military technique?

Question

The military secret to falling asleep in two minutes | The Independent.

The trick is reportedly used by the US army to help them fall asleep in situations that are less than peaceful, such as on battlefields.

Detailed in the book Relax and Win: Championship Performance, 1981, the technique is thought to have been developed by army chiefs to ensure soldiers didn’t make life-threatening mistakes due to exhaustion.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Relax the muscles in your face, including tongue, jaw and the muscles around the eyes
2. Drop your shoulders as far down as they’ll go, followed by your upper and lower arm, one side at a time
3. Breathe out, relaxing your chest followed by your legs, starting from the thighs and working down

4. You should then spend 10 seconds trying to clear your mind before thinking about one of the three following images:

   • You’re lying in a canoe on a calm lake with nothing but a clear blue sky above you
   • You’re lying in a black velvet hammock in a pitch-black room
   • You say “don’t think, don’t think, don’t think” to yourself over and over for about 10 seconds.

The technique is said to work for 96 per cent of people after six weeks of practice.

Michael Grothaus wrote

So I can confidently say this decades-old technique worked for me. Mind you, it didn’t work every night. Some nights during that second week I didn’t get that “release” after my visualization. But as the weeks went on, the trick seemed to work more often than not. And it seemed to work more effectively when I visualized myself in a velvety hammock instead of in a canoe, so it helps to switch up visualizations to see what works best.

But this r/IsItBullshit post judges this BS.

1. sterlingphoenix. 49 points 1 year ago.

That's bullshit. For one thing, that would instantly become widely available. It's not the kind of thing you can ke[e]p secret.

2. MisterSlosh. 16 points 1 year ago.

Bullshit . Was army, no technique, it's literally just being 100% exhausted all the time that you can sleep as soon as you stop moving.

3. devilsadvocate09. 9 points 1 year ago.

Veteran here, it is bullshit, you pretty much become accustomed to catching a few minutes of sleep whenever the opportunity arises, especially in combat zones where long duration sleep can be hard to come by.

I would argue that the really short naps are more of a meditation state than sleep state.