A lot of people I'm speaking to right now are waking up anxious,
Tired and wired for no reason.
Most of the time it's not their stress levels,
It's their breathing,
Especially during sleep.
If you're breathing through your mouth at night,
You're putting your body into a low-grade stress state for six to eight hours.
That means less efficient oxygen delivery,
Higher heart rate,
More fragmented sleep and you wake up already behind.
So you think you need a coffee or a better mattress or less stress,
But you don't fix the root cause.
Nasal breathing changes everything.
When you breathe through your nose,
You produce nitric oxide which improves oxygen uptake.
You slow your breathing which activates the parasympathetic nervous system.
You stabilize carbon dioxide which actually helps oxygen get released into the tissues.
So instead of being in a state stress,
Your mind moves into recovery.
This is what I do every single night before bed and if I wake up during the night,
It takes about three to four minutes.
Firstly,
I breathe gently through my nose.
I do a long slow exhale through the nose and at the end of the exhale I hold my breath,
Not to panic,
Just until it becomes uncomfortable.
Then a very controlled inhale through the nose,
Letting the breathing settle and I repeat.
What you're doing here is you're training your body to tolerate CO2 and switch off the stress response.
In the middle of night,
This is gold,
Your mind starts going.
Don't reach for your phone.
That's the worst thing you can do.
Believe me,
I've been guilty of it.
Go straight back to this breathing pattern.
Long exhale and hold.
Soft recovery breath in.
It's not exciting,
It's not stimulating,
But that's exactly why it works.
It brings your nervous system down instead of ramping it up.
Most people are trying to hack sleep with supplements,
Distractions,
Different methods,
But if your breathing is off,
None of that matters.
Fix your breathing and sleep starts to fix itself.
Try this tonight for the next three nights.
You'll feel the difference.
