A Sleep Hack?

A Life Hack For Sleep: The 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise Will Supposedly Put You To Sleep In Just 60 Seconds

May 5, 2015 05:48 PM By Lizette Borreli @lizcelineb

This breathing exercise claims to help you fall asleep in just 60 seconds by simply inhaling and exhaling. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

Sleep aids such as earplugs, eye masks, sleeping pills, and white noise are all used to help you fall asleep soundly. However, these sleep aids can be costly and oftentimes provide short-term solutions as sleep disorders and sleep deprivation continue to interfere with a good night’s rest. Dr. Andrew Weil, a Harvard trained medical doctor with a focus on holistic health, believes getting the best sleep ever is as simple as breathing in and breathing out.

America’s Sleep Problem

In the U.S., 40 million people suffer from chronic long-term sleep disorders each year, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while an additional 20 million people experience occasional sleep problems. Stimulants such as coffee and energy drinks, alarm clocks, and external lights, interfere with our “circadian rhythm,” also known as our natural sleep/wake cycle, which is why sleep deprivation is becoming more common. Although research cannot pinpoint the exact amount of sleep needed by people at different ages, eight or so hours for a healthy adult is a good “rule of thumb,” according to the National Sleep Foundation.

The 21st century’s digital revolution has made it increasingly difficult to get a sufficient amount of sleep, especially with the constant need to be connected 24/7. However, Weil, a huge advocate of holistic breathing practices to combat stress, anxiety, and insomnia, believes this can all be remedied with a simple breathing exercise. On his website, he writes: “Breathing strongly influences physiology and thought processes, including moods. By simply focusing your attention on your breathing and without doing anything to change it, you can move in the direction of relaxation.”

This same philosophy is used in his well-known “The 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise,” also called “The Relaxing Breath,” which promotes better sleep. This is based on pranayama, an ancient Indian practice that means “regulation of breath.” The exercise is described by Weil as “a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system” that eases the body into a state of calmness and relaxation.

Kevin Meehan, a holistic practitioner and founder of Meehan Formulations in Jackson, Wyo., believes this breathing technique could be effective because it encourages the fast removal of carbon dioxide. Appropriate respiration is effective in removing carbon dioxide from our systems. “Doing so equates into a better preservation of the bicarbonate pool; our reservoirs for helping maintain an appropriate pH balance,” Meehan told Medical Daily in an email.

How To Do The “4-7-8” Exercise

Weil’s technique is shockingly simple, takes hardly any time, and can be done anywhere in five steps. Although you can do the exercise in any position, it’s recommended to sit with your back straight while learning the exercise. Weil explains to “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. You will be exhaling through your mouth around your tongue; try pursing your lips slightly if this seems awkward.” This is followed by the five-step procedure listed below:

Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh 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 whoosh 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.
Weil emphasizes the most important part of this process is holding your breath for eight seconds. This is because keeping the breath in will allow oxygen to fill your lungs and then circulate throughout the body. It is this that produces a relaxing effect in the body.

Does The Sleep Hack Really Work?

A life hack, especially a 60-second sleep hack, leads several experts to be skeptical about such a bold claim. Dr. Michelle E. Gordon, founder of Northern Westchester Surgical Associates General, acute and emergency surgery specialist, has tried Weil’s breathing technique and attests falling asleep in a minute did not work for her. However, 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.”

Gordon believes the breathing exercise works because it works in the same way as meditation: It helps people quiet the mind and let go of preoccupying thoughts.

The truth behind Weil’s 4-7-8 exercise is it takes practicing this twice a day over two months to perfect the technique until you can truly fall asleep in a minute. Once you’ve mastered it, it will become more and more effective and even help you deal with anxiety and stress in your life. Soon, going to bed will be as simple as taking a deep breath.

Lizette Borreli
Liz is a Senior Reporter at Medical Daily who is an outdoorsy sports enthusiast focused on sexual health, relationships and healthy living. Read more.

...As Dartha whooshes a machine-initiated breath right back at me...

Darth Lady wrote:...As Dartha whooshes a machine-initiated breath right back at me...

I just did it and am still awake. Got up at 4am this morning so I figure I could sleep.

Some times we may not need to go to sleep "right now".
I accept that, and rarely have trouble--but that's just me.

Morbius wrote: How To Do The “4-7-8” Exercise

Weil’s technique is shockingly simple, takes hardly any time, and can be done anywhere in five steps. Although you can do the exercise in any position, it’s recommended to sit with your back straight while learning the exercise. Weil explains to “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. You will be exhaling through your mouth around your tongue; try pursing your lips slightly if this seems awkward.” This is followed by the five-step procedure listed below:

Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh 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 whoosh 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.
Weil emphasizes the most important part of this process is holding your breath for eight seconds. This is because keeping the breath in will allow oxygen to fill your lungs and then circulate throughout the body. It is this that produces a relaxing effect in the body.

All I know is that this would NOT work for me when I've got my PAP on.

Inhale through the nose to a count of four. No problem.

Hold the breath for a count of seven---or "holding the breath for eight seconds"? Kaa's going to send one of those dang pressure pulses just in case the pause in breathing lasts long enough to be an apnea ... And the PPs can still tickle the back of my throat when I'm awake, although not as bad as the Resmed S9's FOT did back in the fall of 2010.

Exhale through the mouth means Kaa starts blowing more air at me because there's now a leak in the system. More air means I start worrying about aerophagia, and that's guaranteed to wake me up.

Maybe others can pull this trick off while wearing nasal pillows. But I don't think I could.

Dartha and Kaa should get together some time.

robysue wrote: All I know is that this would NOT work for me when I've got my PAP on.

Me neither. I do NOT like the sensation of breathing in through my nose with the machine on. Not gonna happen again. When I am awake and upright, nasal breathing is okay when I have open passages. But lying down. Nope. Machine on. Nope. I prefer mouth breathing.

That said, I usually fall asleep within 5 minutes. I remember getting into bed, rolling over, and not much more.

robysue wrote:All I know is that this would NOT work for me when I've got my PAP on.

This brings up an interesting thought. At sleep onset, breathing slows, pCO2 increases, arousal threshold changes, and the two frequently get a little mismatched (creating sleep onset central apneas).

Clearly, the sleep-wake interface is a very fragile time.

However, it has been theorized that this rise in pCO2 may also contribute to a greater ability to achieve sleep onset:

A breathing-retraining procedure in treatment of sleep-onset insomnia: theoretical basis and experimental findings.
Chóliz M1.

Abstract
Increase in CO2 has a sedative effect upon the central nervous system, and the beginning of sleep coincides with modifications in breathing, decrease in ventilation, and in pCO2 increase. In this paper is described a technique of breathing that is useful in producing drowsiness in a very short time. 46 insomniacs were randomly allocated to either a treatment or control condition. In the former, patients were trained in the breathing process. The control group was taught no breathing process. Latencies to sleep for the insomniacs confirmed that the breathing process was useful in producing drowsiness. Theoretical bases are discussed.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7675582

and a chicken/egg consideration.

Perhaps the key point of the above "hack" is

Hold your breath for a count of seven.

which would allow pCO2 to increase (although I guess reducing your respiratory rate to ~3 would also have some effect there)(ya think!?).

So:

Does the addition of xPAP therapy alter the ability of one to permit the pCO2 rise, and perhaps (further) destabilize the sleep-wake interface? Does the addition of ramp do more than simply provide a lower pressure to deal with, namely, keep ventilation lower? Does aggressive xPAP therapy serve to prevent the taking of sleep through lowering of pCO2? Is this concept one of the reasons responsible for a generally poor compliance of disorder therapy?

Inquiring minds....

Morbius wrote: This brings up an interesting thought. At sleep onset, breathing slows, pCO2 increases, arousal threshold changes, and the two frequently get a little mismatched (creating sleep onset central apneas).

Clearly, the sleep-wake interface is a very fragile time.

However, it has been theorized that this rise in pCO2 may also contribute to a greater ability to achieve sleep onset:

<abstract omittied>

and a chicken/egg consideration.

Perhaps the key point of the above "hack" is

Hold your breath for a count of seven.

which would allow pCO2 to increase (although I guess reducing your respiratory rate to ~3 would also have some effect there)(ya think!?).

So:

Does the addition of xPAP therapy alter the ability of one to permit the pCO2 rise, and perhaps (further) destabilize the sleep-wake interface? Does the addition of ramp do more than simply provide a lower pressure to deal with, namely, keep ventilation lower? Does aggressive xPAP therapy serve to prevent the taking of sleep through lowering of pCO2? Is this concept one of the reasons responsible for a generally poor compliance of disorder therapy?

Inquiring minds....

These are interesting ideas. And in my humble opinion, they are worthy of investigation.

In my particular case, pre-CPAP when I would sometimes have trouble getting to sleep at the beginning of the night, I did do a lot of "mindful breathing" that was designed more to keep me from getting upset about not getting to sleep. I would consciously slow my breathing, but not down to 3 breaths per minute . And I would be aware of the normal slight pause in my breathing between inhalations and exhalations. And I would allow the inhalations to become shallower. And I found this relaxing, and it would allow me to get to sleep within about 40 minutes rather than toss and turn all night long.

I found it difficult to do all of these as soon as I started CPAP. I felt as though the machine was blowing far more air down my throat than my lungs could handle or than I needed/wanted. I described it as "forced-breathing" and compared it to the forced-feeding that European farmers do to geese in order to fatten the livers up for fois gras after I had a particularly disturbing dream of being a force-feed goose on my second or third night of PAPing. When I tried to tell the PA of the (a**hole of a) doctor treating me at the time that the PAP seemed to be causing more problems than it fixed, I was told that that made no sense. And while I know that they had to have run into patients with compliance issues before, they acted as though they'd never had a patient who was 100% compliant (as in use the machine all night, every night) who got substantially worse rather than better after starting CPAP. Nor were they interested in trying to explain why the number of spontaneous arousals went UP on my multiple titration studies done at their lab.

The sad fact is that some PAPers have an increase in insomnia issues once they're put on PAP, and in many cases the number of spontaneous arousals also goes up on PAP. I am not alone in experiencing a decline in ability to function in the weeks and months after starting PAP. I am an exception in being stubborn enough to stick with it and finally figure out a way to more or less manage the insomnia symptoms that exploded after being put on PAP.

robysue wrote:I felt as though the machine was blowing far more air down my throat than my lungs could handle or than I needed/wanted. I described it as "forced-breathing" and compared it to the forced-feeding that European farmers do to geese in order to fatten the livers up for fois gras after I had a particularly disturbing dream of being a force-feed goose on my second or third night of PAPing.

I had the same experience. For the first three nights, my pressures were very high, and something over 90% of my breaths were machine-triggered. On the fourth night, this abruptly stopped; pressures went lower, and over 90% of breaths were patient-triggered. No idea why; perhaps I somehow suddenly got used to it. My dream was riding on a motorcycle with the wind blasting my mouth wide open .

It may have fixed SDB issues but my sleep is no better. My sleep efficiency was around 77% on both the diagnostic PSG and the recent retitration. Stage shifts were around 140 both times. I have more REM and a bit more deep sleep now, which has to be an improvement, but it's so fractured overall that I probably lose most of the benefit. Seriously considering going out to Albuquerque to consult Barry Krakow (thanks, thanks, thanks for mentioning Sound Sleep, Sound Mind on another thread - describes me to a T).

I don't have trouble falling asleep; it's staying asleep I can't do. But I do wonder how many PAPers have a harder time falling asleep after therapy (and after adjusting to the thing on face, etc.) than before, and could Morbius' idea be the explanation?

However, it has been theorized that this rise in pCO2 may also contribute to a greater ability to achieve sleep onset:

]

Well I can say a high CO2 level definitely contributes to a greater ability to achieve sleep, my level was very high and I could fall asleep at the drop of a hat, was actually falling asleep on the toilet sitting on the edge of the couch with a glass of tea in my hand, driving a car. It is also what gave me my COPD diagnosis. So I definitely wouldn't want to use it as a way to fall asleep quicker! Just saying in my case...........

Morbius wrote:Perhaps the key point of the above "hack" is

Hold your breath for a count of seven.

which would allow pCO2 to increase (although I guess reducing your respiratory rate to ~3 would also have some effect there)(ya think!?).

I've often wondered if there's any *reason* for the typical 'in through the nose, out through the mouth" breathing techniques, or if it's just "we've always done it that way" other than exercising the bits in the back of your mouth that control where the air goes

palerider wrote:

Morbius wrote:Perhaps the key point of the above "hack" is

Hold your breath for a count of seven.

which would allow pCO2 to increase (although I guess reducing your respiratory rate to ~3 would also have some effect there)(ya think!?).

I've often wondered if there's any *reason* for the typical 'in through the nose, out through the mouth" breathing techniques, or if it's just "we've always done it that way" other than exercising the bits in the back of your mouth that control where the air goes

So those nose hairs can filter the air in.

Darth Lady wrote:

robysue wrote:I felt as though the machine was blowing far more air down my throat than my lungs could handle or than I needed/wanted. I described it as "forced-breathing" and compared it to the forced-feeding that European farmers do to geese in order to fatten the livers up for fois gras after I had a particularly disturbing dream of being a force-feed goose on my second or third night of PAPing.

I had the same experience. For the first three nights, my pressures were very high, and something over 90% of my breaths were machine-triggered. On the fourth night, this abruptly stopped; pressures went lower, and over 90% of breaths were patient-triggered. No idea why; perhaps I somehow suddenly got used to it. My dream was riding on a motorcycle with the wind blasting my mouth wide open .

I'll take your motorcycle dream over my dream of being an intelligent goose that knows it's being fattened up for fois gras any day of the week.

That goose dream is one of the most disturbing dreams I have ever had in my life. And I am someone who remembers a fair share of my dreams. In my Pre-CPAP days, I never did have a choking dream or a strangulation dream.

It may have fixed SDB issues but my sleep is no better. My sleep efficiency was around 77% on both the diagnostic PSG and the recent retitration.

On my first diagnostic test, I think my sleep efficiency was something like 65%. On the first titration, it improved to 69%, but I also got no Stage 3 sleep on the first titration study, whereas I had gotten a small amount of Stage 3 sleep on my diagnostic test. My second titration study was done after about 8 weeks of using the S9 AutoSet every night, all night long and feeling worse and worse and worse. The data showed I slept for under 2 hours, with a sleep efficiency of something just under 30%; the odd thing was, I thought I'd slept for about 3.5-4 hours on that test. The results of that test helped convince me that I had to do a lot more serious work in getting the insomnia under control and that I had to be open to the idea of using sleeping medication if necessary to get the insomnia under control and keep it under control.

postitnote wrote:So those nose hairs can filter the air in.

but, why the 'out through the mouth' part?