In the video, Dr. Hanson explains that by applying pressure to the animian region, it helps put our nervous system at ease so we can drift off to sleep more quickly. For my experiment, however, I didn’t want to rely solely on perceived feelings of relaxation to draw my conclusions. Rather, I wanted to crunch the numbers! To do so, I implemented the sleep hack over the course of seven nights. After completing the exercise each night, I took note of what time it was. In the morning, I checked my sleep tracking data using a Fitbit Inspire 3 smartwatch that I’d worn overnight and calculated how much time had passed between when I finished the ear trick and when the watch told me I had fallen asleep.

I didn’t stop there, though. Because the hack involves rubbing the area anywhere between 100 to 200 times, I wanted to see exactly how many circular motions might be most effective. To achieve this, I tried out 100 circular motions over the first couple of nights, then 150, and then 200 as the week came to an end. As if that wasn’t enough, I also alternated between the left and right ear, as well as clockwise and counterclockwise motions. As you can see, we take our TikTok hacks very seriously here at Health Digest.