Tired of Waking up at 3 Am? Andrew Huberman’s 30-Second Sleep Hack Worked Wonders for Me
Sleep experts strongly recommend the free, effortless trick for women with fragmented sleep
Key Takeaways
- A simple eye-movement exercise developed by Andrew Huberman can help you fall back asleep fast.
- The 30-second trick may help quiet a busy mind when you wake up during the night.
- Sleep specialists say it's low-risk and worth trying, especially for women over 50.
If falling back asleep is often a nightmare for you, Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, PhD, might be able to help. He recently went on The Diary of a CEO podcast and shared a hack from his new book Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body. I happened to see a clip of his appearance on TikTok. The strategy he described was so easy to remember, I tried it mere hours later as I was (for the one millionth time since I hit menopause) wide awake at 3 am. I remember thinking: It didn’t work. Next thing I knew, my alarm was going off. Because it did work.
Was it a one-time fluke? Nope. It has gotten my Zzzs back several more times since then. Not every single time, but it’s still impressive since I’ve had insomnia for years and have tried all the things with limited success (doctors, prescriptions, supplements, sleep hygiene, hot baths, ice baths—and that’s just for starters). Could Huberman’s simple “eye stretch” exercise help you? We’ll tell you everything you need to know to find out.
Here’s what to do—and why Andrew Huberman says it works
Huberman, who has published more than 75 peer-reviewed research papers, is an expert on mechanisms underlying brain states and behavior. He has a special interest in the neuroscience of vision, so it’s no surprise his sleep hack is done with your eyes.
Andrew Huberman’s sleep hack in 3 quick steps
- Step 1: Close your eyes and, under your eyelids, move them slowly to one side, then other, then up, then down.
- Step 2: Without opening your eyes, make a counterclockwise circle with your eyes, then a clockwise circle.
- Step 3: With your eyes still closed, point them toward your nose and let out a long exhale. Repeat two to three times.
His explanation for the strategy: “To fall asleep or to fall back asleep, you need to stop thinking about your body position,” he shared on The Diary of a CEO. When you use his pattern of eye movement, it can shut down something called the ‘proprioceptive circuits’ in the cerebellum, which make you forget your limb position. It greatly facilitates the speed at which you fall back asleep.” In case you were wondering, proprioceptive circuits are kind of like the brain’s internal GPS for your body, constantly tracking where your arms, legs and other body parts are positioned in space, even with your eyes closed.
He knows it sounds kind of crazy, “but it works well for many people, and studies are indirectly starting to suggest why,” he writes in Protocols. He gets into the emerging science more in his book, but it’s pretty dense and complicated. He does note that brand new eye-mask and rocking-bed technologies trigger the exact same eye movement pattern as his exercise. “I have tried a few of these [new] technologies and confess I fell asleep in less than two minutes!” Meanwhile, his exercise “is free and easy to try. ‘Next thing I knew it was morning!’ is not an uncommon refrain from people with whom I have shared this trick.”
What sleep experts say about this 30-second hack
“I think it’s a very reasonable thing to try. It’s free, low effort, carries essentially no risk and has solid reasons it could help,” says Shelby Harris, PsyD, a psychologist and board-certified sleep expert with BetterSleep.com. While she wants to see far more research before saying proprioceptive circuits play a big role, “the eye movements give your brain something simple and repetitive to focus on, and the exhale helps shift your body into a calmer state. It’s gentle, doesn’t require getting out of bed and it’s easy to do in the dark, which makes it well-suited for middle-of-the-night wake-ups.”
Another board-certified sleep medicine specialist we talked to agrees. “It hands a busy brain one simple, repetitive thing to focus on, and that pulls you out of the anxious ‘why am I awake again’ loop that keeps so many people up,” says Shantan Ravula, MD, head of clinical outcome for sleep-focused telehealth platform SOMOS Health. And the slow exhale at the end of the exercise? “It switches on the body’s calming parasympathetic system, and you get a real relaxation response. So yes, it likely works, and works well.”
Who is Andrew Huberman’s sleep hack best for?
If you’re a woman over age 50, you’re an ideal candidate. “Sleep naturally becomes more fragmented with age, with less time in deep sleep and more time in the lighter stages where it’s easy to wake up,” says Harris. And for women, age-related hormonal changes can also lead to “fragile” sleep and frequent wake-ups.
Why can even the most exhausted among us have such a hard time drifting off again? “Once you’re awake, your mind often kicks into gear. You start thinking about tomorrow, checking the clock or worrying about how tired you’ll be, and that stress response makes your body more alert, not less,” Harris says.
That said, the technique is worth a try no matter your gender or life stage. “It won’t work for everyone, and it won’t fix a genuine sleep disorder,” cautions Dr. Ravula. “But as a way to quiet your head at 3 am, it’s a good one.”
If you try the technique, we’d love to hear how it goes for you. Let us know in the comments. We hope it leads to less stress and very sweet dreams!
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