The military sleep method works like this: once you are in bed, you release tension from your face, then your shoulders and arms, then your chest, then your legs, and finally you clear your mind for 10 seconds. It is usually traced to Relax and Win, a 1981 book that describes a relaxation routine developed for military pilots. It needs no equipment and works entirely from under the covers.
This article is the full walkthrough of this one method — the steps, the practice schedule, and the adjustments. For the broader playbook on sleepless nights, see When You Cannot Fall Asleep.
Here is the whole method at a glance. Until it becomes automatic, these five lines are all you need to remember.
- Relax your face (forehead, eyes, jaw, tongue)
- Drop your shoulders and release your arms, one side at a time
- Exhale slowly and let your chest soften
- Release your legs, from thighs down to feet
- Clear your mind for 10 seconds
What is the military sleep method?
The military sleep method is an approach to falling asleep described by Lloyd "Bud" Winter, an American track coach, in his 1981 book Relax and Win: Championship Performance. According to the book, it originated as a relaxation routine developed with psychologists for U.S. Navy pilot training during the Second World War — a way to get rest in tense conditions by releasing the body in sequence and then quieting the mind.
The widely quoted claim that 96% of pilots could fall asleep within two minutes after six weeks of practice also comes from that book. How much of this holds up under modern research is a separate question, covered after the steps.
Think of it not as a switch that turns sleep on, but as a procedure that moves your body and mind from "go" mode toward rest, one region at a time. Once memorized, you can run it with your eyes closed in a dark room.
How to do the military sleep method (5 steps)
You can lie on your back or your side. Get into bed, close your eyes, and work from the top down. The whole sequence takes around two minutes, but there is no need to time it.
1. Relax your face
Start with your forehead — let the space between your eyebrows unknit. Then release the muscles around your eyes, your cheeks, and your jaw. Your jaw drops slightly so your teeth no longer touch, and your tongue rests loose in your mouth. The face holds more tension than people expect, which is why this method starts there.
2. Drop your shoulders and release your arms
Let your shoulders sink down into the bed, away from your ears. Then move to one arm: release the upper arm, then the forearm, then the hand and fingers. Repeat on the other side. It helps to picture each arm growing heavy and sinking into the mattress.
3. Exhale and let your chest soften
Breathe out slowly and let your chest relax as the air leaves. There is nothing to control here — no holding, no forced deep breaths. The exhale does the work. If you already use a counted breathing technique, you can fold it in here, but the step itself is simply a natural exhale.
4. Release your legs
Start with the thigh of your dominant leg, then the calf, ankle, and foot. Repeat with the other leg. At this point your whole body, from forehead to toes, has been released once.
5. Clear your mind for 10 seconds
Finally, quiet your thoughts for about 10 seconds. The original book suggests picking one of three options:
- Picture yourself lying in a canoe on a calm lake, with nothing above you but sky
- Picture yourself in a black velvet hammock in a completely dark room
- If no image comes, repeat "don't think, don't think" in your head for 10 seconds
The idea is that after the body has been released, the mind tends to keep running — so you replace the chatter with an image or a repetition. That is the complete sequence.
A one-pass script you can read as is
Until the order sticks, reading this script once before getting into bed keeps you from second-guessing the sequence.
Soften the forehead. Around the eyes, the cheeks, the jaw. Let the tongue go loose. Drop the shoulders. Right arm goes heavy from the top down to the fingertips. Left arm the same. Exhale slowly and let the chest soften. Right leg, from the thigh down through the calf to the foot. Left leg the same. Now ten seconds: a canoe on a calm lake. If nothing comes, "don't think, don't think."
There is nothing to memorize. After a few nights, your body runs the order without the script.
Does the military sleep method work? The 2-minute and 96% claims
The method is usually introduced with "fall asleep in 2 minutes" and "96% success." To set expectations honestly, it helps to separate what is known from what is not.
The numbers come from a 1981 book
The "96% after six weeks" figure is a report in Relax and Win — an anecdotal claim from a training environment decades ago. There is almost no peer-reviewed research testing this method as a whole; Cleveland Clinic's review of it notes that no studies have been done on the method itself. Reports also conflict on whether it is actually taught in the military today.
The ingredients have support
That said, break the method down and you find progressive muscle relaxation, slow exhaling, and calming imagery — components that also appear in cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. Each ingredient has research behind it as a way to reduce arousal. But evidence for the ingredients is not the same as evidence that this routine gets you to sleep in two minutes.
Do not make 2 minutes the goal
Even good sleepers normally take 10 to 20 minutes to fall asleep — see How Long Should It Take to Fall Asleep? for the details. Chasing a 2-minute target creates pressure on the nights you miss it, and that pressure itself keeps you awake. The realistic framing is not "a 2-minute challenge" but "the same calming procedure after lights out, every night."
The 6-week practice
Even the original book presents this as a skill built through practice, not something that works on night one. A reasonable way to pace it:
- For the first few nights, your only goal is remembering the order. Whether you fall asleep is beside the point
- Run the same sequence every night. The more fixed the order, the more the procedure itself becomes a signal for sleep
- Practicing once during the day, sitting in a chair, makes the steps easier to recall at night
- If a few weeks pass without an obvious change, that is not a reason to quit — the original report assumed six weeks
A night where it does not work, or a night where you fall asleep halfway through the steps, both count as normal.
The breathing technique used in the military sleep method
The breath in this method is intentionally simple. There is no count, no holding, and no forced deep inhale — step 3 just asks you to exhale slowly and let your chest soften. The slow, unhurried exhale is itself the technique: a longer-than-the-inhale outbreath nudges the parasympathetic side of the nervous system, which lowers heart rate and releases the chest. That is the only breathing instruction in the routine.
This is where the military method overlaps with widely studied calming techniques. A slow exhale, longer than the inhale, is the shared ingredient in CBT-I relaxation modules, 4-7-8 breathing, and box breathing. The military method differs by leaving the breath uncounted and putting the muscle release in the lead role; the others put a counted breath in the lead role.
If you want a counted version of the breath, the natural way to combine them is to run the military steps first, settle into bed, then move into 4-7-8 once your body is already released — the two stack without competing. The counts and rounds are covered in How to Do 4-7-8 Breathing.
How it compares with the Alice method and cognitive shuffling
The in-bed techniques people reach for after lights out differ mainly in what plays the lead role.
- The military sleep method — the lead is muscle release. You unwind the body from face to legs, then quiet the mind last. It suits nights when your body feels wound up and you want to loosen it before dealing with thoughts
- Cognitive shuffling — the lead is thought replacement. You picture a stream of unrelated words and images to break up chains of thinking. It suits nights when the noise is mental rather than physical. The full procedure lives in How to Do Cognitive Shuffling
- The Alice method — the lead is recreating the half-awake, nodding-off feeling you get sitting up, but in bed. It spread through social media, and there is next to no research testing it — its standing is similar to the military method's anecdotal origins
You do not have to commit to one. A tense body points to the military method; a busy head points to shuffling. Switching by the night is the realistic way to use them.
Tonight's example (for a 23:00 bedtime)
Once you know the steps, the natural slot is right after lights out. For a 23:00 bedtime, the evening can look like this:
- 22:30 — dim the lights, put the phone on its charger
- 22:45 — finish the small tasks: teeth, tomorrow's glass of water
- 22:55 — get into bed, lights off
- 22:56 — close your eyes and start the five steps: face, shoulders and arms, chest, legs, mind
That is a minimal static plan you can copy onto paper as is. If it is already past 23:00 tonight, If I Sleep Now shows wake-up options counted from the current time, which makes the lights-out decision easier. If you want a fuller last half hour, A 30-Minute Wind-Down Routine walks through one.
To rebuild the timing around your own bedtime, the Evening Routine Builder takes your bedtime and the time you have, and lays out the steps to lights-out with clock times attached. Swap the final slow-breathing slot for these five steps and the plan is done. It is free, runs in the browser, and needs no login. For the thinking behind a whole evening, see How to Build an Evening Routine.
If you also want a checklist for the hours leading up to lights-out (caffeine, food, work, screens, snooze), The 10-3-2-1-0 Sleep Rule covers the preparation side; the military method is what you run after lights-out itself.
If you do not yet have a fixed bedtime in mind, the Sleep Calculator works backward from a wake-up time and gives you a few bedtime options aligned with 90-minute cycles, which is the starting point for the evening plan above.
Sleeping position: back, side, or stomach?
The original book describes pilots practicing the routine sitting in a chair as well as lying down, so the method does not prescribe a single sleeping position. The release order — face, shoulders and arms, chest, legs, mind — stays the same wherever you start from.
In practice:
- On your back, with arms slightly out from the body and palms up, makes the release order easiest to feel — most people start here while learning the steps
- On your side, with a small pillow between the knees, works fine and is the better default if back-sleeping triggers reflux, snoring, or back pain
- On your stomach is also fine if it is already your habit, though releasing the chest and shoulders takes a touch more attention because those areas are supporting your weight
Pick the position you would normally fall asleep in. Changing posture just to fit the method is not part of the routine, and the order matters far more than the position.
When it does not work
Your mind will not go quiet
Thoughts returning during the final 10 seconds is the most common sticking point. If the images will not hold, switch to repeating "don't think" — it takes less effort than building a scene and fills the gaps where thoughts creep in. If the same worries or to-dos keep surfacing night after night, writing them down before bed means your head no longer has to hold them. Journaling Before Bed covers a simple way to do that.
You cannot tell whether a muscle is relaxed
If "just release it" gives you nothing to feel, tense first, then let go all at once — the contrast makes the released state obvious. Raise your eyebrows hard for five seconds, or pull your shoulders up toward your ears for five seconds, then drop. After a few nights of practicing with the tension phase, you can drop it and go back to releasing only.
Two minutes pass and you start to worry
Do not check the clock; measuring the time is itself arousing. This method's job ends at "body released, conditions set" — the falling-asleep part cannot be forced by anyone. When you finish the steps, instead of trying hard to sleep, settle for the thought that lying still and resting already counts for something, and keep your eyes closed.
When the cause is outside the routine
If the steps feel right but the nights keep failing, the cause often sits outside the bed. Three usual suspects:
- Late-afternoon caffeine. Coffee keeps working for hours; for when to stop, see What Time Should You Stop Drinking Caffeine?
- A long evening nap. With the day's sleep pressure already spent, no falling-asleep technique has much to work with
- A bedtime that drifts from day to day. When lights-out keeps moving, the body has a harder time learning the routine as a sleep signal
Fixing these three first does more than refining anything inside the bed.
Still awake after that
This is one tool, not a complete answer. For what to do when 20 to 30 minutes have passed, see When You Cannot Fall Asleep; for what a normal time-to-sleep looks like, see How Long Should It Take to Fall Asleep?. And on a night that has already run very late, If I Sleep Now shows what waking up would look like if you slept now, which makes it easier to cut your losses and switch off.
FAQ
Does it really make you fall asleep in 2 minutes?
The 2-minute figure comes from a report in the 1981 book Relax and Win, and there is almost no modern research testing the method itself. Falling asleep in 10 to 20 minutes is normal even for good sleepers, so treat the routine as a consistent after-lights-out signal rather than a 2-minute target.
How many weeks should I practice?
The original report assumed six weeks of practice. For the first few nights, just learn the order; repeating the same sequence nightly is what gradually turns the procedure into a sleep signal. Give it a few weeks rather than judging it after a few nights.
How is this different from 4-7-8 breathing? Can I combine them?
4-7-8 breathing organizes the breath with counted seconds; the military method releases the body region by region. The lead actor differs — breath in one, muscles in the other. The section above on the breathing technique in the military method covers the overlap; the counts and rounds for 4-7-8 specifically are in How to Do 4-7-8 Breathing.
Does sleeping position change how fast the method works?
Not really. The release order — face, shoulders and arms, chest, legs, mind — does the work, and the order is the same in any position. On your back is the easiest place to feel each release while you are learning the steps, but if you normally sleep on your side or stomach, stay there. See the dedicated section above on sleeping position for the details.
Can I use it for a daytime nap?
It can help you settle into a short nap, but nap quality depends mostly on length and timing — see How Long Should a Power Nap Be? for those numbers.
A note
This article is general guidance, not medical advice. The military sleep method is a relaxation habit, not a validated treatment. If sleeplessness persists for weeks, or comes with strong daytime sleepiness or low mood, consider talking to a sleep clinic or another qualified professional.
Sources
- Lloyd "Bud" Winter, "Relax and Win: Championship Performance" (1981) — the book the military sleep method is usually traced to
- Cleveland Clinic, "The Military Sleep Method: Does It Work?" — https://health.clevelandclinic.org/military-sleep-method
- The Conversation, "Will the 'military sleep method' really help me fall asleep in 2 minutes?" — https://theconversation.com/will-the-military-sleep-method-really-help-me-fall-asleep-in-2-minutes-265193
- Sleep Foundation, "How to Fall Asleep Fast" — https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-hygiene/how-to-fall-asleep-fast