No 'magic sleep button:' Separating sleep misinformation from facts on YouTube

When the lights are off but sleep remains elusive, people are often tempted to look for answers where they always do: Online, and especially on YouTube.

There, they can find content creators promising them easy ways to fall asleep fast, presented in attention-grabbing ways — but often with little to no scientific backing.

Those videos often include misinformation and commercial biases, said Rebecca Robbins, a sleep researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an author of a new study on sleep misinformation on YouTube.

“These are videos that are developed by non-health professionals, often bloggers or maybe a health coach, but someone without specific sleep expertise,” Robbins told GBH’s Morning Edition co-hosts Paris Alston and Jeremy Siegel.

Sometimes the information has no scientific proof, but is not directly harmful: That people should open and close their eyes a certain way, blink a certain number of times or find a pressure point on their foreheads. In one video Robbins reviewed, a creator talks about a “magic sleeping button” and demonstrates her technique by pressing down on a point in the center of her cat’s forehead.

There’s no evidence that those things work, Robbins said.

“That is one claim that is certainly false. We don't have any evidence of such a sleep button,” Robbins said. “But some of the more concerning claims had to do with beliefs that there are ways to get close to four hours of sleep, and some of the videos claim that their hacks would help you get there. And of course, that is false.”

Robbins and her colleagues reviewed the most-watched YouTube videos that came up when they searched for keywords like “insomnia” and “sleep tips.” They watched videos by popular creators, with an average of 8.2 million views per video, and compared them to videos made by doctors and sleep experts, which got an average of just 300,000 views per video.

The more popular videos, often produced by people who create YouTube videos and other content professionally, often had misinformation, Robbins said. About two thirds of them also promoted a product or service.

“Some of these bloggers, they're really talented video creators. And so they use things like clickbait and kind of racy photos in some cases, and these claims that are controversial and lacking evidence base to kind of draw attention.”

There’s no one easy trick to help everyone fall asleep. But there are many evidence-based things to try.

First: Don’t skimp on sleep, Robbins said.

“The optimal health and well-being for adults comes from sleep duration in the range of seven to nine hours, and we're all in a different place along that spectrum,” she said.

Try to go to bed around the same time, and wake up around the same time. Falling asleep is easier on a relatively consistent schedule, she said.

“In a typical seven-day week, you want to vary by no more than one hour,” she said. “Our ability to fall asleep and wake up is in part governed by hormones that are associated with those processes. And those can't change on a dime."

Try to think of falling asleep as a process, not the one magical moment of drifting off.

“It would be wonderful to have such a sleep switch, as the YouTuber mentioned,” Robbins said. “The truth is we kind of need to look at sleep as a process and setting ourselves up for success with relaxation techniques, unplugging from screens before bedtime to help us ease into sleep.”

Other things to try: Exercising during the day, though not right before bed and avoiding heavy meals right before bedtime.

“If you're tossing and turning, maybe practicing some gentle meditation or gentle yoga poses could be a good way also to help you kind of overcome some of those insomnia like symptoms,” she said. “The good news is small changes go a long way when it comes to our sleep.”

None of the techniques are perfect, Robbins said. Life gets in the way, and insomnia will sometimes come despite best efforts.

“Sleep isn't going to be perfect every night,” she said. “I think we seek perfection and then we get frustrated when we experience difficulties. But the truth is: sleep is fundamentally a consequence of our daily lives.”