How is the reverse blinking technique supposed to work?

I have seen tons of threads that talk about reverse blinking as a good way to go to sleep really fast, and I have tried it. It definitely works to some extent (not as much as some people say it does), but no matter how much googling and searching I do to find out how it's supposed to work, but I just can't seem to find anything. All I find are either saying that it is one of the best things to ever exist or that it doesn't seem to work for them.

So my main question is: Is there any reason that reverse blinking should work? Any studies to back it up? What is going on in the brain when you do it?

My guess is that reverse blinking is a form of focused attention which helps keep the sleeper from engaging in thoughts that keep them awake by occupying the required attention for this with a simple and repetitive task that is easy to do, yet isn't so boring that the person is demotivated to keep doing it.

As for research and studies to back this up, I couldn't find any on reverse blinking specifically, but I found some on other cognitive tasks done while falling asleep. Reverse blinking is a cognitive task done while falling asleep so I think these studies referenced in the following link are relevant, especially on the second page. (https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/cbf...ccd9241d74.pdf)