Imagine sheep jumping one enclosure, one after the other, and list them: this historically widespread trick is supposed to promote falling asleep. A sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four ... ten, a hundred, a thousand. This technique of grandmother to find sleep would, according to the scientists of the University of Oxford ... counterproductive !
What is neurologically quite logical: the counting of these animals would lead to stimulation of the brain, not conducive to falling asleep. On the contrary: to really find sleep, the brain must disconnect and no longer concentrate.
Visualizing a relaxing scene is much more effective. Specialists have also tested the effectiveness of counting sheep against the visualization of a relaxing scene. The result : imagining a peaceful scene like a beach, a waterfall or the landscape of the countryside makes it possible to fall asleep twenty minutes earlier, on average, than counting the sheep.
