Need Help Sleeping/Napping at Anytime

[RichardCaan]

I hope you are all doing well!

With BMOQA coming soon there is one skill that I absolutely suck at and that is the ability to rack out/fall asleep/nap anywhere at anytime.

During BMOQ in the field I was the kid who was always awake in the day despite of how tired I was, this made the field portion much harder as it was insanely difficult to operate on low sleep. There were times were I was doing jack for hours in field but I could not fall asleep. The only time I actually almost fell asleep was in every class lol. Overall sleep has a STRONG association with performance.

I remember one of my instructors would always push the idea of when in doubt rack out, he would get pissed if candidates were staying awake during tasks which they didn't have to be awake for (example: being the runner during orders while waiting for the orders).

I have heard of stores of armored and infantry guys being able to sleep in a moving LAV for 15 minutes - 2 hours. Hell I could not even fall asleep on the 1 hour bus ride back from the field lol.



So what technique could I use to fall asleep or get in a short nap in uncomfortable situations (example: field, in a moving vehicle, on a bench, on dirt etc)?

 

[SeaKingTacco]

That is a difficult one to answer, because I could nap anywhere, at anytime.

But, if I was to deconstruct it, I suppose I had a mental routine. For me, I would clear my mind by mentally counting things. This broke my mind away from thinking/worrying about the right now stuff.

In short, at normal bedtime, practice a mental routine just before you fall asleep. After a few weeks, your brain will begin to associate sleep time with that routine, regardless the time of day.

 

[RichardCaan]

That is a difficult one to answer, because I could nap anywhere, at anytime.

But, if I was to deconstruct it, I suppose I had a mental routine. For me, I would clear my mind by mentally counting things. This broke my mind away from thinking/worrying about the right now stuff.

In short, at normal bedtime, practice a mental routine just before you fall asleep. After a few weeks, your brain will begin to associate sleep time with that routine, regardless the time of day.

Thanks for the response! I’ll try it and let you know if it works!