The end of the year period is conducive to sleep disorders. Difficulty falling asleep, waking up at night… Here is specialist Fabien Olicard’s tip for getting quality sleep again.
Reduced brightness, end-of-year stress, more frequent use of screens before sleeping, irregular pace of life… All these current factors affect the production of the sleep hormone, melatonin. This cocktail creates an environment conducive to sleep disorders. “I have the thing that will make you go straight to sleep tonight. I’ve been experiencing this for a month and a half and it’s crazy.“, confides Fabien Olicard, mentalist and author of successful books on the powers of the brain.
The goal is to activate the brain’s parasympathetic system, namely its “calm mode.” This little pre-sleep exercise is part of the light-load cognitive tasks that helps avoid mental intrusions. “It’s as powerful as some breathing exercises“, explains the mentalist. First, it saturates the phonological loop of the brain, that is, talking to yourself. When you load it, anxious thoughts and ruminations no longer have access to it, because this exercise is not very difficult, but precise enough to occupy permanent mental space. “It creates a monotonous rhythm and the brain loves simple patterns, it creates a lullaby system in the head, it’s a bit crazy. But the crazy thing is that in the tests, and I also confirm this, people don’t know when they switch off (and fall asleep). I don’t know when I’ll pick up either“.
It’s quite simple: you take a number or a figure between 250 and 500 in your head, let’s imagine 342. And you will mentally count down from 3 to 3 in your head. So from 342, we will go to 339, then to 336, 333, 330, 327 and so on…”I tell you, it won’t last long, because pretty quickly, you’ll drop out, you won’t be there anymore, you’ll be falling asleep. Don’t underestimate it, it’s worth it whether you’re a math person, or not at all. Test this evening. I know, math isn’t sexy, but it’s not really math. It’s just counting down from 3 to 3. Try it once.“, insists the mentalist.
This technique is more effective and more fun than the famous trick of counting sheep. The latter is a simple, repetitive exercise that is often not engaging enough to actively prevent mental intrusions, anxious thoughts, or ruminations. On the other hand, counting from 3 to 3 acts as an internal lullaby, leading to a loss of sleep without the person even realizing it. At the same time, to “turn off your brain” and fall asleep quickly, establish a soothing routine (reading, soft music) and make sure your room is completely dark and cool.
Finally, never look at the time when you are in bed. Knowing it’s 2:00 a.m. or 3:30 a.m. only increases anxiety and makes it harder for you to get back to sleep. It’s a very bad habit to banish in order to find peaceful nights.
