As winter approaches, many people start to get a little down and stressed.
This can lead to problems with sleeping. But if you are struggling to get 40 winks, this simple breathing technique could be the answer to your prayers.
Many who practise it say it puts them under within a minute.
It's called the "4-7-8" method and has been championed by various people, from best-selling author and Harvard trained medical doctor Dr Andrew Weil, to popular wellness bloggers.
The "4-7-8" method is a breathing technique and it's very simple.
It can be completed in six easy steps:
- Place the tip of your tongue against the ridge of tissue just behind your upper front teeth, and keep it there through the entire exercise;
- Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whooshing sound;
- Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four;
- Hold your breath for a count of seven;
- Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whooshing sound to a count of eight;
- This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths.
The method is designed to relax you by increasing the amount of oxygen in your blood stream, slowing your heart rate and releasing more carbon dioxide from the lungs.
Whether it is guaranteed to send you to sleep in 60 seconds remains open for debate but Dr Michelle E Gordon, founder of Northern Westchester Surgical Associates General and an acute and emergency surgery specialist, says it did not send her to sleep but it DID relax her.
She told Medical Daily in an email: “The breath does elicit a sense of relaxation and calm. I teach it to my patients as a means of keeping calm when having anxiety over surgery or post-operative anxiety. It works.”
Dr Weil himself claims that "it produces a very pleasant altered state of consciousness. You may not get that the first time you do it but it’s one of the benefits of practising.”
