Wake up at 3am? Hack promises to get you back to sleep ‘instantly’

If you find yourself laying wide awake at 3am unable to fall back asleep, a sleep expert has revealed a hack that could do the trick.

If you constantly find yourself waking up in the middle of the night and struggling to get back to sleep, a viral hack might just do the trick.

Jenna Coak, a nurse, has shared with her followers a hack she learnt on Instagram to help fall asleep within minutes, calling it the “best” sleeping hack ever.

She even revealed her sleep statistics from her Oura ring, a smart ring designed to track various health metrics including sleep, which proved it actually worked.

The simple trick to fall back asleep

“I saw this trick and I was like, ‘No way does this actually work’, but I’ve tried it a couple of nights in a row and it’s the best trick I’ve ever tried,” Ms Coak began her TikTok, which now has over two million views.

She then demonstrated the trick. “Your eyes need to be closed while you’re doing it,” she explained. “So you look to the right, you look to the left, you look up, you look down, and then you go around in a circle, and then you go the other way.

“You then repeat that until you fall back asleep.”

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A nurse has shared a sleep hack to fall back asleep in minutes. Picture: TikTok/Jenna_Coak

She then showed her Oura data from a standard night’s sleep before trying the trick, where her total awake time was roughly one and a half hours.

There were frequent and prolonged periods where she was awake throughout the night, especially between 3am and 5am, with multiple instances where she took some time to get back to sleep.

Then she shared her sleep stats after implementing the hack, with her total awake time dramatically reduced by over two-thirds to around 24 minutes.

Her awake periods were far less frequent and much shorter, with most being extremely brief.

“It feels like some voodoo magic,” she laughed, noting that one night she did the process just twice and fell asleep.

Her sleep statistics before trying the hack, with multiple periods of wakefulness throughout the night. Picture: TikTok/Jenna_Coak

Her sleep data after trying the hack, with just 24 minutes of awake time. Picture: TikTok/Jenna_Coak

According to Olivia Arezzolo, an Australian sleep expert, this eye-rolling trick “definitely” helps people fall back asleep.

“The pattern of the eye is called bilateral stimulation, increasing connectivity between right and left hemispheres, which helps reduce anxiety,” Ms Arezzolo told news.com.au.

“It also uses cognitive reframing, which distracts from mental rumination and requires mental focus.

“It avoids the use of a phone, which is the typical go-to for those waking through the night, and contributes to greater anxiety, restlessness and sleeplessness.”

Sleep expert Olivia Arezzolo says the hack will ‘definitely’ help some people fall asleep. Picture: Supplied

Stress and sleep

While this hack might help you fall back asleep, if you’re aiming to decrease mid-sleep wakeups altogether, Ms Arezzolo says the key is managing your stress levels.

“Waking frequently in the night could be due to high cortisol levels driven by stress, anxiety, alcohol or excessive caffeine,” she explained.

“Many people believe that just because they wake due to stress, the only solution is to reduce stress.”

But while that’s one approach, she says you can also cut it down through physiology during the night, like cooling your core body temperature, breathwork or meditation.

Before bed, sleep aids like magnesium and ashwagandha are effective, as is reading and avoiding blue light devices.

Managing your stress will help you wake up less throughout the night. Picture: iStock

Another method to fall back asleep

Ms Arezzolo emphasises that while this hack may be effective, it won’t necessarily work for everyone.

Other tips she recommends for falling back asleep include:

– Using stimulus control: get up from bed if you’re struggling to fall back asleep.

– Using lavender: activates the parasympathetic nervous system.

– Going into the loungeroom and engaging your mind in a tech-free activity like reading, as reading can reduce stress by 68 per cent. Use red night lights or other red-tinted lighting to prevent increasing cortisol further, which can happen with regular lighting.

– Returning to bed when you’re just about to fall asleep.

Originally published as Wake up at 3am? Hack promises to get you back to sleep ‘instantly’