Bedtime Rituals: Training for Sleep

Step 9: Breathing

A while back, the 4-7-8 breathing technique was heralded as the solution for sleep. It was ?guaranteed? get you to fall asleep in a 6o seconds.

Breathing can just be part of your pre-sleep bedtime ritual. In fact stressing out about if you?re doing it right would be counterproductive. Personally, I?ve found that the whispered exhale technique from the late Carl Stough just as effective and a lot easier.

The premise is simple: You can?t inhale effectively without a complete exhale. By whispering on the exhale you?re not forcing air out. What you whisper – nonsense syllables, counting 1 through 10 – acts as a kind of biofeedback monitor for the length of the exhale. When you can?t whisper any more, you?re at the end of the exhale and the lungs are ready for the next part of the cycle. A deep inhalation naturally follows.

Another powerful facet of the human condition is habit. If we perform a certain routine often enough we can start to do it unconsciously and with little effort. We can use that to improve our sleep, which will in turn improve our mental abilities. Check out the full post for the other steps.