How to Trick Yourself into Believing You Slept Great

By The Editors

Find a doctor who will lie to you. It's a little shady, sure. But find a doctor who will lie to you and get his or her number. Then call them up every morning and ask them how well you slept. This is where the lie comes in. Have them tell you, through the guise of scientific data-something you can't understand and therefore can't second-guess-that you slept great. Then, believe it. Because if you can truly believe it, then you will feel great, regardless of how well you slept.

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That's the takeaway of a recent study, summarized over at Smithsonian.com, which proved that there is something of a placebo effect that applies to sleep. In short, researchers lied to people about the quality of slept they got-the scientific lingo was REM percentage-and then tested the subjects who they told got great sleep against those the scientists told did not get great sleep. Then they made them do a test. And, yes, those who were told that they got great sleep performed better, regardless of the actual quality of sleep they got.

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The key is to believe though-to be actually tricked. Which makes enacting this information difficult.

So maybe try and forget we told you this.

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Because we heard that you slept great last night. Real nice REM percentage.

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