How to breathe well to sleep quickly?

Caution : You must consult your doctor for your health. This page presents only a personal and alternative point of view which should not be considered as an attempt to prescribe medicine.

Do you do any rituals before sleeping to make it easy to fall asleep?

Do you relax, stretch, read books or listen to music?

If you find that your evening ritual is ineffective, then you will need to practice effective breathing exercises to end your sleepless nights.

Let's see how to breathe to sleep better with 4 exercises recommended by sophrologists and Yoga teachers.

Practice alternate breathing

If despite your best efforts, you are unable to get to sleep easily, try alternate breathing.

It is a breathing technique to relax and quickly fall asleep.

In truth, it is not made to relax, but to balance your nervous system (parasympathetic and sympathetic).

In Yoga, we will say that the technique Anuloma viloma (another name given to alternating breathing) allows to balance the energy channels Ida and Pingala.

In short, this breathing exercise is practiced by yoga enthusiasts and allows you to free yourself from stress and negative ideas.

It also evacuates fatigue and helps you regain your good mood.

In addition to these benefits, it helps you to effectively slow your heart rate so that you can easily fall asleep once in bed.

To achieve this, inhale and exhale naturally through your nose.

Towards the end of the exhalation, cover the right nostril of your nose with your thumb, and inhale through the right nostril.

At the end of the inspiration, stop the left nostril and exhale through the right nostril.

Then inhale again through the right nostril, plugging the left nostril, and exhale through the left nostril, plugging the right nostril.

Do this cycle several times in a row, very slowly, until you feel more relaxed.

Breathing alternately for 3 minutes while sitting on the bed is enough to calm you down.

NOTE: the secret of the exercise lies in the good execution of the technique (see with a Yoga teacher if necessary) but especially in the slowness of execution (do it slowly).

Practice cardiac coherence

Just like alternate breathing, this technique of cardiac coherence breathing is also effective in finding sleep easily.
It helps calm the rhythm of your heart (palpitations).

When you perform it, you balance your nervous system and also promote your parasympathetic nervous system if you were stressed.

You slow down the functions of your body and conserve energy.

This allows you to decrease the stress rate and eliminate negative thoughts from your mind to relax you.

To succeed, you need to breathe in through your nose for 5 seconds while inflating your stomach.

Then you exhale for 5 seconds as well, but this time, pulling in your stomach.

Do the exercise in a seated position.

If this position does not suit you, stay lying down.

This breathing rhythm is to be repeated for 5 to 10 minutes.

In two weeks, you will find better sleep.

Finally, if you want to master it as quickly as possible by following a video guide or an audio guide, download the applications which are intended for cardiac coherence.

NOTE: in general, I advise against cardiac coherence because, even if it seems to calm the heartbeat, it can quickly turn into an exercise of chronic hyperventilation with all the dangers that we know.

Practice squared breathing

In order to fall asleep quickly after a long day, it is essential to naturally slow down your breathing.

To do this, practicing squared breathing can help rebalance your nervous system and your breathing.

It is accessible to everyone since it is simple and easy to do.

The principle is that it works in 4 equal times that you must reproduce in the form of a square.

To get there, take a deep breath in the belly (diaphragmatic breathing).

Inhale while inflating the stomach as if you were performing abdominal breathing.

When your lungs are full, try to block your breath, then breathe out completely.

As soon as your lungs are empty, block your breathing.

For each step, allow 3 to 5 seconds.

Practice this every time you go to bed.

However, to avoid running out of air, avoid blocking your breathing for too long.

Subtly, you can stop blocking it when you notice positive changes in your sleep.

After a while, you will have a slow and full breathing rate that makes it easy to fall asleep.

NOTE: Square breathing can have calming effects, but in my personal experience, I prefer to avoid any type of breathing retention before going to sleep, and especially full lung retention which activates adrenaline.

Practice abdominal breathing

For this exercise, you need to lie on your back and put your hands on your stomach.

When you are relaxed, breathe in through your nose while inflating your stomach, then breathe out, still through your nose, letting the stomach drop naturally.

However, for this breathing exercise to guarantee you a quick result, it is important to perform it after an evening ritual.

So, before practicing it, you must adopt the ritual that is right for you.

For example, you can read a book or better, write down in a notepad all the negative thoughts that burden and cripple you.

This way of proceeding helps you to free your subconscious in order to reprogram it positively.

Besides this example, think of all the good things done during the day and be grateful.

Relive all these scenes that give you beautiful emotions to find calm in your mind.

This contributes to your full development and improves the quality of sleep.

So, you just need to follow all these tips to improve your breathing and sleep easier.

You can try each technique to choose the one that works best for you.

Anyway, I have personally had the best effects with intermittent breathing, which allows you to sleep very quickly thanks to its very effective anti-stress (anti-insomnia) effect.

To try it is to adopt it !

Read also :

Previous article : How to breathe well and push during childbirth?

Next article : How to choose a breathing coach to learn to breathe well?