Sept. 19, 2022 — If you’re too stressed to sleep, taking time to practice a breathing regimen with ancient roots could help you find your way to slumberland.
Andrew Weil MD, founder of Andrew Weil center of Integrative Medicine, University of Arizona, popularized the 4-7-8 breathing method. However, it is based upon pranayama (yogic practice of breath regulation), CNN reported.
“What a lot sleep difficulties are about is people who struggle with falling asleep because their minds are buzzing,” Rebecca Robbins from Harvard Medical School, an associate scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston said to CNN. The 4-7-8 technique gives you the chance to practice peace. That’s what we should do before we go to sleep.
Weil’s WebsiteThese are the instructions: Place the tip of the tongue behind your upper front teeth. Keep it there throughout the exercise. This will allow you to exhale from your mouth, around your tongue, and then inhale through the nose. With a loud whoosh sound, exhale and then inhale through the nose until you reach a mental count four. Keep your breath steady for seven counts. For a count of 8, exhale through the mouth and make a whoosh sound.
You can repeat this three more times.
“If you have trouble holding your breath, speed the exercise up but keep to the ratio of 4:7:8 for the three phases,” Weil’s website says. “This breathing exercise is a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system.”
Raj Dasgupta, a clinical associate professor of medicine at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, told CNN that the 4-7-8 technique appears to activate a person’s para sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for resting and digesting. This technique decreases activity in your sympathetic nervous system, which controls your fight or flight response.
Although many swear by the 4-7-8 method, there isn’t much scientific evidence to support its effectiveness.
According to Kelly Waters MD, Spectrum Health’s sleep medicine physician, breathing exercises of any kind can help people relax and go to sleep. Prevention.
“The repetitive nature of breathing techniques is great for the last steps of settling,” she said. “The first stage of sleep is called the ‘hypnic’ stage, and these types of breathing techniques allow for a type of self-hypnosis.”
