Losing Sleep? Just Breathe!

You can't throw a rock these days without hitting a news article or blog post about how much stress, anxiety, and sleeplessness is resulting from all of the changes that are crashing down on our lives resulting in more lost time from work, more visits to the doctor, etc, etc.

As we have mentioned many times in previous posts, one of the most powerful and effective stress remedies is your conscious intentional breath. In a nutshell, your breath counteracts nearly every negative effect that stress and anxiety have on your mind, body, and emotions.

One of the most effective exercises that we teach is called "The Healing Breath", and although we normally recommend it for those situations where you feel a cold or the flu coming on, it is a very powerful antidote to insomnia. Not only does it quiet your mind and body,but the breath-focus also takes your mind off all the pressing worries that are stressing you out and keeping you awake. We've found that often times you'll be back in slumberland before you can complete the exercise.

There are also several other great breath-based sleep remedies in a recent blog from Kate Dailey at Newsweek. She relays an interview with sleep expert Michael Krugman who has several excellent suggestions for getting the zzz's flowing again.

Sweet dreams!