5 minute trick to help you sleep faster on World Sleep Day

Sometimes you feel absolutely shattered and head off to bead but lie awake for hours unable to sleep.

While ideally, we should not look at our phones, tablets, television or tablets, during this period due to the blue light they emanate, but realistically, it is not possible.

However, it turns out that there really is something one can do before bed to help them fall asleep in five minutes.

It’s incredibly simple too: all you need to do is write a very specific to-do list.

According to researchers merely writing down the tasks one needs to do the next day helps calm the brain and make one relax.

Researchers say that one of the main reasons we lie awake at night is because we’re worrying about things we need to do the next day.

Lead author of the study Dr Michael K Scullin said, “We live in a 24/7 culture in which our to-do lists seem to be constantly growing and causing us to worry about unfinished tasks at bedtime.”

He added, “Most people just cycle through their to-do lists in their heads, and so we wanted to explore whether the act of writing them down could counteract nighttime difficulties with falling asleep.”

According to a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, spending five minutes writing a to-do list could be all it takes to fall asleep faster.

However the researchers also found that journaling - ie writing about the things you’ve already done - doesn’t have the same effect.