Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist at Stanford, has identified a counterintuitive way to calm your nervous system when you're lying awake at 3 a.m.: move your eyes side to side under closed eyelids for 10 to 30 seconds.
It sounds odd. It works because of how your brain evolved.
When you walk forward, your eyes naturally scan left and right to track the terrain ahead. That side-to-side movement signals safety to your amygdala — the part of your brain that processes fear and threat. Your nervous system interprets forward motion as "we made it through, we're okay," and downregulates the alarm response.
You can trigger that same calming effect without moving anywhere. "For most people who are sighted, moving your eyes from side to side for 10 to 30 seconds is going to calm you down," Huberman explained on the Mark Bell's Power Project podcast. The eye movements suppress amygdala activity, making you feel less fearful and more grounded — exactly what you need when your mind won't stop spinning at midnight.
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Start Your News DetoxPair it with extended exhales (longer out-breaths than in-breaths), and you're working with two nervous system levers at once. The exhale activates your parasympathetic nervous system — your body's "rest and digest" mode. The eye movement tells your brain the threat has passed. Together, they're a two-part signal that it's safe to sleep.
The timing matters. Only about 32% of Americans report getting excellent or very good sleep, according to a 2022 Gallup poll. Most of us know what happens next: the racing thoughts, the clock-watching, the frustration that makes it worse. Huberman's technique is simple enough to try when you're already in bed, and it doesn't require equipment, apps, or a prescription.
The science here isn't brand new — therapists have used bilateral eye movements (like those in EMDR, a trauma treatment) for years. What Huberman has done is isolate the specific mechanism and make it accessible for the 2 a.m. version of yourself who just wants to sleep.
If you wake in the middle of the night, keep your eyes closed, move them side to side for a few seconds, and breathe out longer than you breathe in. Your amygdala doesn't know the difference between actually moving forward and the neural signal that you are. It just knows to calm down.
