How to fall asleep in a minute

There are times catching a shuteye is a feat on its own. Some sleep as soon as their head hits the pillow while some struggle all through the night trying out one technique or the other to lure sleep.

Sleep deprivation can affects one’s life adversely in many ways, from direct health impact to work related problems, or even personal relationships.

In a write-up taken from Times, Dr Weil offered a simple exercise that can help one sleep within a minute and it is a surprise. It is known as  “4-7-8” exercise and it involves breathing.

How to Do The “4-7-8″ Exercise:

Dr. Weil is an influential public supporter of a previously little-known breathing technique known as the “4-7-8 exercise.” This trick, which began to capture attention several years ago and has since been the subject of innumerable headlines, including one on Oprah.com, is shockingly simple, takes hardly any time, and can be done pretty much anywhere.

Here is how you do the exercise:

Place the tip of your tongue against the tissue ridge right above your upper front teeth. Keep it there for the remainder of the exercise.

Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound as you do so. Close your mouth and inhale slowly through your nose while mentally counting to four.

Hold your breath for a mental count of seven.

Exhale completely through your mouth for a mental count of eight.

Make the same whoosh sound from Step Two.

This concludes the first cycle. Repeat the same process three more times for a total of four renditions.

In a nutshell: breathe in for four, hold for seven, and breathe out for eight. You must inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. The four-count inhale allows chronic under-breathers to take in more oxygen.

The seven-count hold gives the oxygen more time to thoroughly permeate the bloodstream, and the eight-count exhale slows the heart rate and releases a greater amount of carbon dioxide from the lungs.

Alina Gonzalez, who wrote “How I Learned to Fall Asleep in Under 1 Minute” for Byrdie.com, says that 4-7-8 helped her fall asleep amid her nerves and severe anxiety the week before she was scheduled to give the bridesmaid speech at her best friend’s wedding.

Read also: 5 things to gain by sleeping naked

When Gonzalez told her friend that she was having trouble getting to sleep due to a combination of stress and pre-wedding jitters, the bride-to-be, who was a licensed wellness practitioner, told her that the 4-7-8 technique would change her life.

It did. Like so many others who swear by this method, the originally skeptical Gonzalez wakes up each morning to the incredulous realization that she does not even remember completing the final 4-7-8 cycle because it put her to sleep so quickly.

The 4-7-8 exercise certainly has the potential to help overly stressed, anxiety-ridden Millennials (as well as members of the general population at large) fall asleep more quickly. It is also known to have positive effects when implemented throughout the day during times of stress, anger, guilt, frustration, or internal tension.

When weighing the painlessness of this completely free method against the irritability, headaches, distractedness, impaired cognitive skills, weight gain, and even heart disease that can result from the “performance killer” known as sleep deprivation, it seems worth a shot.

 

 

RipplesNigeria …without borders, without fears

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now