This was a particularly interesting time for me to be trying out this technique because I was traveling between time zones for the duration of the experiment. My two-week trip had me going from hotel rooms to relative’s homes in different states, and as any of us can attest to, sleeping in a different bed than your own can make sleep even more challenging.
Using my own personal FitBit Inspire 3 sleep-tracking watch, I took note of what time I climbed into bed each night and began the exercise as well as what time it was once I completed it. I then checked my sleep data the next morning to see at what time I had fallen asleep. For comparison, I also tracked my sleep on nights when I didn’t implement progressive muscle relaxation, which is how I initially kicked off the experiment.
The first night, it took me 16 minutes to fall asleep. Even with the help of a relaxing pre-bedtime shower, it took me a miserable 39 minutes to fall asleep the second night. As you can probably imagine, by this point I was more than ready to try out this muscle hack and see if I could improve upon my nearly 40-minute sleep onset latency time from the night before.
