Improve Your Sleep and Boost Your Health with Simple Breathing Techniques

We spend over 33% of our lives in bed sleeping. It's no secret that sleep is incredibly crucial. This is likely the reason inadequate sleep leads to various negative health consequences. Do you have trouble falling asleep? You are not alone.

Today we explore and discuss long sleep latency and how you can use a simple technique to fall asleep faster and improve your health.

Sleep latency is the time it takes for you to fall asleep after going to bed. If you take over 20 minutes to fall asleep at night, you have a long sleep latency. This happens for many reasons, like anxiety, stress and poor sleep habits. It's gonna be bad for your health. The difficulties can escalate, making weight loss challenging and further compromising the immune system, worsening the situation significantly.

Recent studies estimate that 30%–50 % of adults worldwide suffer from sleep disturbances, making sleep disorders a critical public health concern. While poor sleep quality causes many health concerns, I will focus on the speeding up of cellular aging, which will make you feel and look older.

Your mitochondria

Mitochondria are cell energy powerhouses. Healthy mitochondria lead to healthy cells. When cells are healthy, it results in healthy tissues, a well-functioning metabolism, properly functioning organs, and ultimately contributes to an overall healthy body.

Researchers sought to assess the link between sleep latency and mitochondrial function. Evaluating sleep quality can be challenging without the use of sleep devices for thorough monitoring. However, if you struggle to fall asleep quickly, it shows that your sleep quality may not be optimal.

According to the study, middle-aged adults with insufficient sleep had reduced levels of mtDNAcn, an indicator of mitochondrial function. Lower mtDNAcn levels were associated with longer time to fall asleep, but there was no correlation between mtDNAcn levels and sleep duration or efficiency. If you want to look and feel younger, then quality sleep is overwhelmingly better than quantity.

Methods to shorten sleep latency.

One effective method is the 4-7-8 breathing technique. This technique is simple, and you can do it anytime you have trouble sleeping.

Dr. Andrew Weil developed the 4-7-8 breathing technique from roots in ancient yoga traditions. This technique helps calm your mind and body, making it easier to fall asleep.

Here's how it works:

1. Close your mouth and quietly breathe in through your nose for a count of four.
2. Hold your breath and count to seven.
3. Breathe out completely through your mouth for a count of eight.
4. Repeat this cycle four times.

The 4-7-8 breathing technique helps increase the amount of oxygen in your body, calms your nervous system by slowing your heart rate and it also helps remove more carbon dioxide from your lungs, making you feel more relaxed. You fall asleep faster.

The best way to cure insomnia and sleep problems

Sleep hygiene

Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends.

Make your bedroom comfortable by creating a dark, quiet, and cool environment.

Avoid screens, like TVs, phones, and computers, for at least an hour before bed.

Avoid caffeine and heavy meals close to bedtime.

Try the 4-7-8 breathing technique every night to help you fall asleep faster.

Bringing it all together.

There are many aspects of our lives that lie beyond our control. We should not include long sleep latency in the list. The complexity of the causes of mitochondrial dysfunction should not discourage us, as the simplicity of fixing our sleep can exponentially improve their function. This improvement increases our chances of success and has the potential to make us appear and feel more youthful. Make sure you take advantage of the benefits. Your life's quality depends entirely on your choices and actions.