A bizarre sleep hack has been deemed a gamechanger for people with insomnia - despite seeming completely counterintuitive.
Not being able to fall asleep is one of the worst feelings - epecially if you find yourself counting down the hours until your alarm is due to go off in the morning.
For most of us that suffer with occasional insomnia, we pretty much resign ourselves to being exhausted the following day and hope we can catch up on some much-needed Zs the next night.
However, experts have revealed there may be a way to help yourself switch off into a peaceful slumber... despite it sounding like it would have the opposite effect on paper.
Dr. William Lu, a GP and the Medical Director at Dreem Health, told the New York Post that the secret to falling asleep... is to try not to fall asleep.
Now, hear him out on this one - apparently fighting sleep is more likely to send you to the land of nod than actively trying to get some shuteye.
He told the outlet: "This is an actual technique in cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia called paradoxical intention.
"Sleep is something that should come naturally. Listen to your body and look for the cues that you are sleepy and ready for bed. I would say that the harder you try to sleep, the more difficult it becomes."
According to Dr. Lu, anxiety about not getting proper sleep often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the more you worry about not being able to fall asleep or how little sleep you'll be getting, the more likely it is to keep you awake even longer,
He revealed it is a form of "performance anxiety", where the worry about the outcome dooms its failure, while paradoxical intention aims to trick the mind that you're "giving in" to not being able to sleep and are fighting to stay awake, thus causing you to fall asleep.
In practice, paradoxical intentions could involve getting up and doing a mundane activity that doesn't require too much brain power, which in turn shifts the focus away from the pressure to sleep.
This is then said to encourage drowsiness, and therefore help a person to fall asleep more naturally.
Martin Seeley, the CEO of MattressNextDay, admits that while it seems "completely counterintuitive," the psychological trick actually does work.
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And it comes scientifically backed, too, as a 2021 meta-analysis published in the Journal of Sleep Research found that employing paradoxical intention techniques significantly reduced sleep-related performance anxiety, and those participants that surrendered to their insomnia actually ended up falling asleep faster.
Of course, as well as paradoxical intention, there are many ways you can also help your body to prepare for a good night's sleep, such as blackout curtains and shutting off light-emitting devices such as televisions and cell phones as you wind down.
Dr. Lu added: "I personally try to cover any light that might come from electronics in the room. Even when our eyes are closed, we can still sense light, and this can impact when we wake up."
I'm going to be giving all of this a go the next time I inevitably lie awake tossing and turning.