Counting Sheep

If you're looking for pictures that I promised to post, skip this post devoted to my goal tonight of getting some shut eye and jump down to the next post for pictures that speak a thousand words.

If you've already read that post, you know that I put it up in the middle of the night when I couldn't get to sleep.  Here is some insomnia trivia that I found when I googled "counting sheep."  If you are lucky enough to be so bored you could fall asleep reading these three items, then just read the yellow one at the bottom for the final, scientific study and answer to whether counting sheep really puts you to sleep.


Google # 1

"We finally figured out why it never worked for us. The old wives' cure for insomnia is to count bouncy little sheep leaping over a fence. No wonder it doesn't work. Bouncy sheep are hyperactive and wide awake. They're the last thing you need to dwell on when you want to go to sleep.
So try the variation that worked for us. Count sleeping sheep. Imagine a beautiful green meadow stretching to infinity. Every ten feet or so, right in a row, lies a peaceful, sleeping sheep. Imagine that you're just gliding by, almost floating. And that you pass by a sheep every 3 or 4 seconds (experiment to find which time interval works best for you -- it varies from person to person). Count the sheep and glide on to the next, and the next, and so on.
Take it from us. Sleeping sheep are much more effective.

Note - We found this recently on the Web:
Apparently in the 1970s two Harvard psychologists, Richard Davidson and Gary Schwartz, researched "counting sheep" as a classic way of dealing with insomnia. They concluded that counting sheep occupied both hemispheres of the brain simultaneously, preventing the type of disturbing brain activity that is often responsible for insomnia."


Google # 2 - Another explanation with a reference going back to 1832.

"An early reference to counting sheep as a means of attaining sleep can be found in Illustrations of Political Economy by Harriet Martineau, from 1832:

"It was a sight of monotony to behold one sheep after another follow the adventurous one, each in turn placing its fore-feet on the breach in the fence, bringing up its hind legs after it, looking around for an instant from the summit, and then making the plunge into the dry ditch, tufted with locks of wool. The process might have been more composing if the field might have been another man's property, or if the flock had making its way out instead of in; but the recollection of the scene of transit served to send the landowner to sleep more than once, when occurring at the end of the train of anxious thoughts which had kept him awake."

Google # 3 - And now, the final word on the subject and then I shall think about waterfalls and beaches -

"The Claim: Counting Sheep Helps You Fall Asleep

THE FACTS The reason people count sheep, as opposed to bluebirds or sailboats, is uncertain; some authorities think it may have to do with a tallying system devised by shepherds in ancient Britain. But there is no question that the phrase has entered the language. And its meaning is clear enough — the sheer monotony of the task is meant to lull you to sleep.

But does it work? Scientists at Oxford University put it to the test. In their study, which appeared in the journal Behavior Research and Therapy, two sleep researchers recruited insomniacs and split them into groups. Then they monitored them as they tried different techniques for falling asleep on various nights.

What they found was that subjects took slightly longer to fall asleep on nights they were instructed to distract themselves by counting sheep or were given no instructions at all. But when they were told to imagine a relaxing scene — a beach, for example — they fell asleep an average of 20 minutes sooner than they did on other nights. Counting sheep, the scientists suggested, may simply be too boring to do for very long, while images of a soothing shoreline or tranquil stream are engrossing enough to concentrate on.

In other studies at Oxford, scientists compared “good” sleepers with insomniacs and found distinct differences in their pre-sleep thoughts. Insomniacs pictured less scenery of any kind and had more thoughts of unpleasant images, worries, noises in the environment, “intimate relationships” and things they had done during the day.

THE BOTTOM LINE Don’t count sheep; instead, try picturing relaxing images."