World Sleep Day: Simple breathing technique will help you sleep when you’re struggling to drift off

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Try these breathing techniques to ease yourself to snooze (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Struggling to drift off?

Don’t reach for a nightcap or panic about counting sheep – all you need to do is try a simple breathing technique to ease your mind and slip into a restful slumber.

This World Sleep Day, we chatted to Stuart Sandeman, the UK’s leading breath expert, to steal his go-to breathing technique for when struggling to snooze.

Stuart recommends a trick he calls The Tranquilizer.

‘Here we want to maximise the rest and digest (para-sympathetic response), slow the mind, and the system so that we can nod off to sleep,’ says Stuart.

‘So we want to increase in para-sympathetic and vagus nerve activity and reduce of sympathetic.

‘In this state we feel relaxed, calm and you can get to sleep with ease.’

Here’s how you do it.

How to do The Tranquilizer breathing technique to help you drift off to sleep:

1. Inhale through the nose for a count of four
2. Hold breath for a count of six
3. Exhale through pursed lips for a count of eight
4. Repeat four times

If you’re still finding it hard to shut off, you can try another technique called Box Breathing.

This helps to reduce anxiety, panic, and stress, taking the body from flight or fight mode to rest and digest.

‘It reduces heart rate, causes your body to relax and mind to calm,’ says Stuart. ‘It’s also a gamechanger to help you get to sleep.’

Here’s how to nail box breathing.

How to do Box Breathing to help you relax:

1. Inhale through the nose for a count of four
2. Hold breath for a count of four
3. Exhale through the nose for a count of four
4. Hold breath for a count of four
5. Repeat four times

Finally, there’s the ‘4-7-8 Breath’:

How to do the 4-7-8 Breath:

1. Place tongue on roof of your mouth
2. Inhale through nose for count of four
3. Hold breath for count of seven
4. Exhale through pursed lips for count of eight
5. Repeat four rounds

Have you found a fix for sleep problems? Get in touch to share it by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.

To talk about mental health in a private, judgement-free zone, join our Mentally Yours Facebook group.

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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/13/world-sleep-day-simple-breathing-technique-will-12392879/?ITO=squid