Dr. Andrew Weil developed the Sleeping Breath, also known as the 4-7-8 breathing technique and the “relaxing breath”. It is a very simple exercise where the breathing pattern aims to reduce anxiety or help people to fall asleep. Some proponents claim that the method helps people to fall asleep in 1 minute. We will dig a little bit deeper into that claim in this article.

The technique copy some of the de-stressing elements of meditation and relaxes your body almost immediately. 

Dr. Weil recommends practicing the ‘relaxing breath’ (sitting up with your back straight) twice a day for six to eight weeks to master it. 

Once you’ve mastered it, the breathing will help you with your sleep.

You can practice the sleeping breath pattern everywhere. But we recommend that you find a comfortable position and go through the following instructions.

• Place the tip of the tongue on the tissue right behind the top front teeth. 
• Empty the lungs of air. 
• Close your mouth and inhale through your nose for a mental count of four.
• Hold your breath for a count of seven.
• Next, exhale completely through your mouth for a mental count of eight.
• Now inhale again and repeat until you feel relaxed.
• 
  

Remember all inhaling breaths must be quiet and through your nose, and all exhaling breaths must be loud and through your mouth.

You can also watch Dr. Weil demonstrating the 4-7-8 breathing technique below

The Sleeping Breath technique is popular because proponents have claimed that it helped them fall asleep in 1 minute or less. 

The breathing exercise works like meditation. It helps people quiet the mind and let go of thought patterns resulting in lower stress level.

It is easy to become overstimulated nowadays. With a few 4-7-8 breaths you can rebalance and calm the nervous system, and in turn, make it easier to fall asleep.

The truth behind Weil’s 4-7-8 exercise is that it takes practicing this twice a day over two months to perfect the technique until you can fall asleep in a minute. Soon, going to bed will be as simple as taking a deep breath.

Besides falling asleep in a minute, there is a range of positive benefits such as:

• Decrease stress levels and anxiety
• Decrease fatigue
• Reduce symptoms of asthma
• Better stress management
• Reduce hypertension
• Reduced aggressive behavior
• Improve migraine
• And much more

We created some easy-to-follow breathing animation just for you. So head over to the sleep breathing session, where you can try the sleep breathing for beginner, intermediate and advanced users. 

Check it out the breathing animation here

There are several reasons why this technique works so well. First of all, the effect of the breathing technique feels almost like a sleeping pill.

Holding and exhaling for 7 and 8 seconds will force your body to slow your heart rate down, especially if your starting breath is shallow and short.

As a beginner, you may want to take another breath or speed up the counting. But try to stick with the numbers for a while to feel your heart rate slow down, your mind to get quieter and your body to relax. It will wash over you like a calming, relaxing trance.

By nature, when people are stressed or anxious their breath is short and shallow and they may not even be aware of the fact that they are holding their breath in.

By following the technique you will slow your heart rate and increase oxygen in your blood. You may even feel lightheaded which contributes to the mild sedative-like effect. 

The technique has the potential to relax your heart, mind, and central nervous system. If you are feeling stressed, you have the choice between controlling the breath versus continuing to breathe shallow gasps of air.

It might take a few nights of practice before you will be able to sleep in one minute or less. But as with so many other things, the key is consistency. You might have trouble concentrating on doing the exercise at first. Remember to set aside some time to slow down your evening routines, and give space to nothing else but your breath.

Dr. Weil recommends using the technique at least twice a day to start seeing the benefits sooner. He also suggests that people avoid doing more than four breath cycles in a row until they have more practice with the technique.

If you maintain the correct ratio, you may notice benefits after several days or weeks of doing 4-7-8 breathing one to two times a day. 

Dr. Weil claims that the exercise is subtle at first but it gains power with practice and repetition. This is backed by many advocates, they agree that the longer and more often a person uses the technique, the more effective it becomes.

The total number of seconds that the pattern lasts for is less important than keeping the ratio. A person who cannot hold their breath for long enough may try a shorter pattern instead, such as:

• Breathe in through the nose for 2 seconds
• Hold the breath for a count of 3.5 seconds
• Exhale through the mouth for 4 seconds 

The Sleeping Breath technique by Dr. Andrew Weil is known for reducing stress and anxiety. With frequent use, it reportedly becomes more effective in helping a person manage their stress levels.

Lately, people have also used it as a wonder cure for falling asleep faster. Clinical research does not support these claims yet. But there are still anecdotal reports from satisfied users that use the technique every night.

We tested the 4-7-8 breathing technique for 2 weeks and experienced great benefits. It took a little bit longer than 1 minute to fall asleep. But as we used it night after night we felt we got closer and closer to the 1 minute.

Try for yourself and tell us if it worked for you!