Tossing and turning all night yet again? Working out how many hours before your relentless alarm clock starts blaring? You, sleep-deprived reader, are not alone.
Many of us have experienced the frustration that the harder we try to force sleep, the further it seems to slip away. But is this really the case?
According to a recent trend on TikTok, trying to sleep may well hinder your efforts to nod off. In fact, influencers are recommending actively trying not to sleep as the best way to get your eight hours in. This counterintuitive technique is known as 'paradoxical intention', and while it might be new to TikTok, it's a tried-and-tested method supported by science.
You heard that right, something on TikTok actually has some scientific grounding – who’d have guessed?
“Paradoxical intention is a long-standing treatment procedure that's been used in psychological therapy for decades and decades,” explains Colin Espie, a professor of sleep medicine in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford. “In fact, I did my first studies using paradoxical intention therapy back in the 1980s."
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What is paradoxical intention?
There’s a whole bunch of phobias and anxiety disorders that paradoxical intention can help with, and in each case, the basic premise is this: deliberately adopt the opposite attitude towards your desired outcome.
For example, if a patient has a particular phobia of failure, a psychologist might help them face it head-on rather than avoiding it as they usually would. This means exposing the patient to lots of new situations where they might fail until it becomes so natural that the fear and anxiety fade away.
“For sleep, the basic instruction is that you should try to remain awake when you're feeling ready for bed, sleepy or during the night when you wake up,” Espie says. “You should reverse your intention towards trying to remain awake.”
This approach seems illogical at first, but it rests on the principle that trying too hard to sleep can backfire.
“Sleep is primarily an involuntary process, and therefore, by attempting to control the sleep process, you usually interfere with it,” Espie says. “Essentially, you can't get sleep; you can only ever fall asleep. We're kind of abandoning remaining awake rather than activating sleep.”
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How to use 'paradoxical intention' to get to sleep faster
Implementing paradoxical intention is pretty straightforward. Still, there are a few things to consider before you give it a go.
1. Go to bed when you feel sleepy (and not before)
It might seem obvious, but you won’t fall asleep unless you feel tired. Paradoxical intention is all about aiming to stay awake, but that won’t be much of a challenge if you’re attempting it in the middle of the day.
“Sometimes people go to bed far too early because they're desperate to sleep, but they won’t be able to sleep unless they're a morning lark, and they usually fall asleep very early in the evening,” Espie says.
2. Prepare for bed as you would normally
Despite its fancy name, paradoxical intention doesn’t require much fluff around the edges. No high-tech watches or sleep meditation apps are needed here as it’s best not to overcomplicate things.
Simply getting into your bed, putting the light out and lying down is what Espie recommends.
3. Instead of closing your eyes, keep them open
According to Espie, there are several ways to implement paradoxical intention, but this is the easiest method.
“Assume the position with your eyes open and then think, ‘I'm not sleeping, I'm not sleeping, I'm not sleeping.'
“Then, just encourage yourself with a few more phrases like, ‘I’ll just stay awake a little bit longer’ or ‘I’ll keep my eyes open just another 10 seconds’. Every time you feel your eyes closing, you say no,” he explains.
Eventually, keeping your eyes open becomes harder and harder, and instead of battling yourself to get to sleep, suddenly you’re fighting to keep your eyes open.
When you do feel sleep coming, try not to stir or fight it or even acknowledge it too much; simply let it happen.
As an extra bit of advice, Espie recommends keeping a handkerchief or tissue under your pillow in case your eyes begin to run with water a little.
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4. Don’t take it too literally
A key mistake people make when implementing paradoxical intention is being far too literal with it.
“It's not about sticking pins in yourself and keeping yourself awake; the intention is not to counter sleep by remaining awake at all costs.
“By overdoing it, you’ll keep yourself up because you'll become too intent on remaining doing so. The real purpose is to let sleep do its thing,” Espie says.
5. Stick with it
Changing sleep habits doesn’t happen overnight (sorry), so you’re going to have to work at them. “You do need to follow these treatments for a while to get the most out of them,” Espie says.
“One of the challenges associated with a solution like this, and here's a professor at Oxford supporting this solution, is that people can become very disillusioned and down if they find it works for now but not for very long.
“That's usually because they've underestimated their own sleep problem and underestimated the extent to which they've got into the habit of overthinking the whole thing before.”
Ultimately, if the problem persists, it’s important to seek help from professionals where possible. “It's not just a lifestyle issue,” Espie says, “sometimes people need help”.
“This is not a hack”
Despite what TikTokers might want you to believe, they haven’t discovered a way to hack our brains.
“You can’t take credit for human nature,” Espie says. “Sleep is a fundamental process and this is not a way of switching it on; it’s not a game.”
He does find it interesting, however, that tips and tricks relating to sleep are becoming popular on social media. The insomnia hashtag on TikTok now has almost 600,000 posts, while the hashtag ‘sleep’ has over 2.9 million.
Meanwhile, surveys of American adults have shown that almost three-quarters of social media use occurs just before bed. Not a bad time to learn a new sleep technique, then?
According to Espie, the increase in popularity of the topic online could be a symptom of increasing levels of insomnia.
“I think the importance of sleep and the need to get effective help for sleep problems are hugely underestimated, and a lot of young people in particular are struggling with it,” he says.
“This is why paradoxical intention is really quite useful, because it reminds us that the solution is not tricks and pills and potions and stuff; it’s in sleep itself.
“The solution is getting your sleep into a good pattern and enabling it to do its thing.”
About our expert
Colin Espie is a professor of sleep medicine with the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences (NDCN) at the University of Oxford, where he founded the Experimental & Clinical Sleep Medicine research program within the Sir Jules Thorn Sleep & Circadian Research Institute (SCNi). He also serves as the Clinical Director of the Oxford Online Programme in Sleep Medicine.
Additionally, prof Espie is a fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, and a senior research fellow in the University Department of Psychiatry. He is also the author of the book Overcoming Insomnia, a self-help guide to using cognitive behavioural techniques that includes guidance on using paradoxical intention.
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