Does Counting Sheep Really Help You Sleep and How?

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“I can’t fall asleep…” “Go counting sheep, dear.”

It’s advice that has been passed down for generations as an effective way to combat insomnia. But is it?

Across the globe, people use different techniques to fall asleep. Some take a glass of warm milk, others take a pill, and some listen to relaxing soothing sounds.

However, some claim that no sleeping technique beats counting sheep. Before explaining how counting sheep helps you sleep, you first need to know what it is.

What is Counting Sheep?

The idea can be traced back to the ancient British sheepherders. They couldn’t sleep till they counted all their sheep to ensure none was missing.

The technique doesn’t refer to real sheep but an imaginary one. It’s a mental exercise. You’ve to imagine a line of woolly sheep jumping over a fence one after the other. You have to keep the tally as each pass. You have to count until you drift off in slumber.

Does Counting Sheep Really Help You Sleep?

But does it help you sleep, or it’s just malarkey?

When you find yourself turning in bed unable to sleep, counting sheep will seem perfect to try. And eventually, when your mind gets exhausted, you’ll fall asleep. However, oxford university researchers found that counting sheep stretches it’s time to fall asleep.

Experts researching ways to relieve insomnia found that counting sheep before bed does not make people fall asleep earlier, but may affect their sleep, causing them to fall asleep later than normal.

This is because most of the scenes of counting sheep happen when the insomnia counts from 1 to 100. During this process, people need to keep concentrating. If the count goes wrong, they have to count again, which undoubtedly increases the brain and psychological burden, but not conducive to sleep.

On the other hand, people choose to count sheep before going to bed to relieve insomnia, mostly because they are afraid that insomnia will affect their normal life the next day. Therefore, the circulating sheep counting skills cannot really help sleep, but will aggravate the psychological burden of insomnia and affect sleep.

How does Counting Sheep Work?

a) Distraction – counting sheep is a distraction strategy. It prevents you from focusing on worrying and stressing thoughts.

b) Mental exhaustion – when you visualize, you need energy. Your mind exercises to create and hold mental images, using brain energy. When you do this for a while, your brain will be exhausted.

The bottom line is counting sheep will help you fall asleep. But, it will take longer.