Tracing the origin of the old wive’s tale that ‘Counting sheep will help you sleep’ is difficult.

Regardless, it’s always important to see if a technique works, by looking at whether it has been scientifically tested.

And if you’re someone who has been doing one of our WINK Short Courses, you have learned how important it is to learn about Sleep Theories.

So what sleep theories can help us understand whether Counting Sheep works?

Harvey & Espie

In the early 2000s, a couple of Insomnia gurus published their own theories.

And these theories were about how thoughts and behaviours can create insomnia.

Prof Colin Espie provided a comprehensive set of inter-related factors that can move a person from being a ‘good sleeper’ to ‘insomnia’.

A unique factor he proposed was ‘Sleep Effort’.

Prof Espie reminded us that we should not chase sleep - we should wait for it to come to us.

Indeed, ‘Counting Sheep’ might be one of those techniques akin to putting in too much effort, and thus pushing away sleep.

Prof Allison Harvey’s model of insomnia shows that people develop insomnia initially due to racing thoughts that occur as soon as their head hits the pillow.

Racing thoughts then increase one’s alertness in bed.

The implication is that to reduce this heightened alertness in bed, one method is to directly deal with the racing thoughts.

Reduce the thoughts. Improve the sleep.

So does this mean that counting sheep is an effective technique?

Prof Harvey testing various cognitive techniques with people diagnosed with insomnia.

She found that when people with insomnia were told to imagine relaxing images, they fell asleep quicker. This was a great example of a method that blocked the typical mind racing that happens in bed.

But when those with insomnia performed a technique like counting sheep, they fell asleep later than usual.

What Could Be Wrong With Counting Sheep?

Sorry to say it but you get to find this out if you have managed to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter.

After all - we need to give our subscribers that little bit extra.

We’re doing this on the countdown to our 100th blog - titled 100 Sleep Tips.

So please feel free to subscribe to get a bigger chunk of evidence-based sleep tips.

And if you want to get the entire 100 tips, then see the JOIN tab on our website and become a member. If you refer a friend who joins, then you get your month of membership payment back!

• Prof MG

2022 WINK SLEEP CONFERENCE

Our 1st round of Early Bird Tickets ends on October 31st 2021. Our 2nd and final round of Early Bird Tickets begins on Nov 1st and ends December 15th (unless Sold Out).

See winksleep.online/conference for more details …