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Sep 21, 2020 · The Benefits of Breathing Exercises. Breathing deeply can improve blood pressure, reduce stress, and help with chronic conditions. Try these exercises today. Usually, taking a breath isn't ...
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And while prescription sleep aids were deemed the most helpful, a number of people who tried alternative methods, such as regular exercise, meditation, yoga, and deep-breathing exercises, said ...
- Melatonin. Your body runs on an internal clock called the circadian rhythm. Melatonin, a naturally occurring hormone, helps signal to your brain that it’s bedtime.
- CBD. Some people use this compound, a nonpsychoactive derivative of hemp or marijuana, to relieve anxiety and promote sleep. A 2017 paper suggested that CBD may be a reasonable treatment for insomnia, but the scientists said that such research is in its infancy and that more long-term studies are needed.
- Magnesium. The mineral magnesium may help reduce stress and relax the body before bed. Magnesium supplements can be taken as pills or as a powder added to drinks.
- Iron. Iron deficiency is closely linked to restless legs syndrome, a condition marked by uncomfortable sensations in the limbs and an uncontrollable urge to move them, which can interfere with sleep.
- Overview
- How I Signed Up for Breathwrk
- How Breathwrk Works
- How It Helped Me Sleep Better
- How It Taught Me Mindfulness
- Pros and Cons
- Final Thoughts
Sleep has never come easily to me. I’ve had on-and-off insomnia for as long as I can remember, and while some of it is likely my biological clock (both my mother and I are natural night owls), I take longer to wind down than a lot of other people I know. That’s why, to get a good night’s sleep, I need a bedtime ritual to bring myself into the right physiological place for rest.
Tools like breathwork, a series of exercises that help you focus on your breathing or use your breath to get in touch with your body, are ideal for bedtime rituals because they calm the nervous system, clear the mind, and create a habit of relaxation before bed. So I figured I’d look for an app that could help me learn more about breathwork and that’s how I found Breathwrk.
This award-winning app aims to teach you hundreds of breathing techniques to help you sleep, learn meditation and mindfulness, improve your athletic performance, and even reduce your addiction cravings. All of this appealed to me for a lot of reasons. For example, I forget to inhale deeply (or at all) when I’m stressed, so I figured meditation and mindfulness might help me with this. I also wanted something to force me to be consistent, to make me slow down and breathe even when I don’t want to, such as when I am in a panicked moment or when my mind is whirling before bed.
Thankfully, the Breathwrk app did just that: It helped me to create a bedtime breathwork practice, and even better, it nudged me into using breathwork throughout the day so that by the time bedtime rolled around, I wasn’t attempting to force my nervous system to slow down in an instant. I’m also a better breather overall and I’ve cultivated a deeper awareness of how my breath is affected by my psychological and physical states.
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Signing up for Breathwrk is super easy. You start by choosing which version you want (free or premium) and creating an account. Once you’ve downloaded the app, you can try any exercise or class you want right away.
Like many wellness apps, Breathwrk offers a few pricing options:
•A free version, which includes over 50 classes and exercises and free 7-day challenges
•A premium version, which costs $12 per month or $69 if you pay for the whole year upfront (which breaks down to roughly $5.75 a month)
Breathwrk offers two main options to learn breathwork techniques.
•Exercises generally take one to two minutes to do and lead you in one prescriptive breathing format for an intended goal, like muscle relaxation.
•Classes run anywhere from three to 15 minutes, are led by a teacher (pre-recorded) and often include multiple exercises as well as education. Like exercises, classes focus on one intended goal, though it's often broader.
For both, breathing techniques are broken down into five categories:
•Calming
•Nighttime
To find both exercises and classes for sleep, I went to the “Nighttime” tab under the “Discover” section.
This section was made for night owls and consisted of exercises like “Muscle Relaxer,” which involved taking a short inhale and making a humming sound as an exhale, and “Back to Sleep,” which consisted of a medium-length inhale, hold, exhale, hold pattern. Each exercise tackled relaxation and sleep preparation from a different angle, and while I couldn’t always tell a huge difference in how they made me feel, they all relaxed me.
I appreciated that I had the freedom to take any class or do any exercise whenever I wanted, without having to plan or create a schedule for it.
For example, if I woke up in the middle of the night, I could do the “Fall Back Asleep” exercise, and if I wanted to do five exercises in a row before bed, I could.
But I could also create something more structured by setting up a schedule. I could pick specific exercises to do every night at a certain time and would get automated alerts to prompt me. I found that staggering exercises and classes helped me get in the habit of being proactive about winding down and made my bedtime exercises more effective.
In general, I tended to prefer the classes. I found them to be the most effective when I was tossing and turning because—let's face it—it takes more than a minute to calm a wide-awake mind that’s gotten used to years of insomnia.
One class that stood out to me—especially when I was feeling anxious—was the “SOS Breathing” I mentioned above.
I actually turned to this class when I was feeling frazzled from an overly scheduled day, my shoulders tense and my diaphragm tight and contracted, making my breathing shallow.
I felt comforted and empathized with right away: The teacher talked about how hard it can be to slow down the breath, then guided me to look away from my phone screen and let my gaze soften, explaining that when we lock our eyes on a screen, it keeps the nervous system activated. He then led me through about three minutes of breathing techniques. I walked away significantly more relaxed and peaceful, plus I’d learned something new about the nervous system. I consider that a win.
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I also loved that Breathwrk offers tests for “Max Exhale'' and “Breath Hold,” since my goal was to improve my breathing overall, not just during exercises. Knowing that my lung capacity was expanding from just a minute or two of breathing a day was motivating and reminded me that I was benefitting outside of when I was actively using the app. It was cool to see all of the options for breathwork to help users focus, wake up, or lift their mood.
That said, the energizing and mood-boosting classes weren’t my favorite. Most involved rapid breathing, and while those did deliver results as promised, I sometimes felt like I was hyperventilating, which actually created anxiety. Of course, that was my own physiological reaction and personal preference and I think those exercises could easily benefit other people.
Breathwrk helped me relax mentally, emotionally, and physically before bed, which made it easier to fall asleep, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some downsides. Here are my pros and cons.
Overall, I felt that Breathwrk delivered on its promises to help me calm down, improve my breathing, learn more mindfulness techniques, and fall asleep more quickly.
While I haven’t tried every technique available in the app’s large library, I know that if I have a sugar craving, am prepping for my next 5K, feel anxious, or experience nausea, I can turn to Breathwrk and find relief in as little as a minute.
It’s incredibly practical and accessible, and I wasn’t expecting so many options and techniques.
Classes were 15 minutes at the most, and some were as short as a minute. I was grateful for the shorter length of most of the exercises and even the classes. One reason I’ve put off using breathwork in the past was the time commitment, so I appreciated that Breathwrk delivers results in a few minutes and makes it easy to establish a habit. And once I’d accomplished one short exercise, I was typically pumped to do more. I also loved the variety of techniques and approaches to supporting sleep, from targeting muscle relaxation to staggering exercises so they build on each other over time.
There was clearly a lot of thought put into this app: It tackles insomnia from multiple angles (relief from overthinking, relaxing the muscles, disconnecting from a tough work day) and offers solutions from multiple angles, such as slowly unwinding through staggered exercises and sticking to the breathwork habit for seven days in a row.
As someone who has tried a variety of breathwork techniques (including yogic, somatic, diaphragmatic, and neo-shamanic) for almost two decades, it was very apparent to me that the classes this app offered were high quality.
5 days ago · Those who regularly practice breathing exercises report better sleep, mental clarity and mood, to name just a few benefits. The benefits of breathwork are well documented, helping to regulate your ...
Oct 4, 2022 · Breathing exercises are a simple and easy way to manage stress and wind down before bedtime.Like other healthy sleep habits, learning breathing exercises require both patience and practice. Learn about several breathing exercises that may help to improve your sleep, as well as tips for incorporating breathing exercises into your bedtime routine.
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Nov 30, 2022 · Allow your lips to part gently. Exhale completely, making a breathy whoosh sound as you do. Press your lips together as you silently inhale through the nose for a count of 4 seconds. Hold your ...
