Trying to imagine fat, fuzzy white lambs, jumping one by one over a fence, is a well-known solution to sleeplessness. I don’t have insomnia (失眠) often, but I’ve often wondered just who came up with such a silly suggestion and why decided on sheep.
History supposedly provides the answer: It was said to be a way for medieval shepherds (中世纪的牧羊人), completely lacking in human company for weeks at a time, to fall asleep each night — they counted their sheep until drowsy. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know.
So does counting sheep really help you fall asleep? Search online, and you’ll soon find stories about a 2022 study on combating insomnia that put the concept to the test. However, that wasn’t the point of the research, said senior author Allison Harvey. “Our study more than 20 years ago wasn’t about counting sheep; it was just about using imagery to fight insomnia,” said Harvey, who conducted the research while a professor of psychology at Oxford University.
Her research split 50 people into three groups, Harvey said. The first had no instructions on how to fall asleep, while members of the second were told to distract from thoughts, worries and concerns in any way they wanted. The third group was instructed to perform an interesting and engaging imagery task, such as creating or remembering a meadow, a waterfall, a holiday or a summer afternoon in the sun. Those who used imagery reported falling asleep much faster than either of the two other groups, and they rated their thoughts, worries and concerns to be less uncomfortable and upsetting than people in the distraction or no instruction group.
As it happened, two of the study participants in the distraction group did count sheep as a way to fall asleep “and somehow people developed a strong interest in that, I guess because they thought it was fun,” Harvey said. While she didn’t actually study counting sheep as a way of overcoming insomnia (and isn’t aware of any other studies to do so), Harvey does have an opinion based on her years as a sleep specialist.
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