Breathing Practice for WAKING AT NIGHT

Breathing technique

To send you back to sleep on waking up during the night – soothing interrupted sleep patterns

Are you a person that can fall asleep well but wakes every night at 1am or 2am or 3am or 4am or 5am, or all of those times? And then cannot fall back to sleep?

Everyone will wake up in the middle of the night at some point. For many, the cause is benign and short-lived, such as needing to urinate due to drinking too much liquid before bed. However, regularly waking up in the middle of the night is highly problematic.. Stress is one of the main reasons people wake up in the night. It makes your sleep lighter and keeps you from getting deep and REM sleep.

Tranquility

We have recorded an audio of a relaxing breathing exercise.  This is a natural tranquilliser for the nervous system, developed by Dr. Andrew Weill, which soothes you gently back to sleep.

4:7:8 Breath for Tranquility

It is called the 4:7:8 breath and we have drawn on this beneficial practice a lot!  The absolute time you spend on each phase is not important; the ratio of 4:7:8 is important. If you have trouble holding your breath, speed the exercise up, but keep to the ratio of 4:7:8 for the three phases. With practice you can slow it all down and get used to inhaling and exhaling more and more deeply.

When your exhalation is even a few counts longer than your inhalation, the vagus nerve (running from the neck down through the diaphragm) sends a signal to your brain to turn up your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) and turn down your sympathetic nervous system (SNS).

The SNS commands your fight or flight response. When it fires in to action, your heart rate and your breathing speed up. Stress hormones, like adrenaline, start pumping through your bloodstream preparing your body to face a threat.

The PNS, on the other hand, controls your restful and relaxation response. When the parasympathetic system is dominant, your breathing slows, your heart rate drops, your blood pressure lowers as the blood vessels relax, and your body is put into a state of calm and restoration.