The idea of harnessing the power of your breath to help you deal with stress or get to sleep at night is absolutely fantastic on paper, but its not so easy to do in practice. We all know a few deep breaths can settle us down at times, but there are certainly more benefits to be unlocked with the breath if you use established techniques like the 4-7-8 breathing exercise.

For more information about the 4-7-8 breathing technique and the benefits it can bring, Coach spoke to Stuart Sandeman, founder of Breathpod, which offers breathing workshops for individuals or groups.

You breathe in for a count of four, hold the breath for a count of seven, then exhale for a count of eight. Its a breathing technique that will activate the parasympathetic state [putting your body in a state of rest], so its a very effective pattern for anyone to reduce anxiety. It moves you into that calm, relaxed state.

Even within one cycle youll notice the effect. Using 4-7-8 drops your respiratory rate to one breath every 19 seconds, so around three breaths a minute.

A doctor named Andrew Weil, who founded the Arizona Centre for Integrative Medicine at Arizona University, created the 4-7-8 breathing technique. He claimed that if you practise it you fall asleep in 90 seconds, which is a bold statement! But in my experience it has been very effective, and I use it as a go-to for a lot of people with sleep issues.

There are a few things that are at work. Youre using the diaphragm to breathe, and getting the benefits of diaphragmatic breathing in terms of calming the body and moving into a parasympathetic state. Then the breath hold allows carbon dioxide to increase, and when you start to increase that youre pushing the body to balance out its pH. Often people who are anxious, or stressed and hyperventilating go the opposite way.

Absolutely. If somebody is hyperventilating you give them a paper bag to breathe the carbon dioxide back in. You can do that by slowing the breath down and adding the hold. Thats how the carbon dioxide builds up, as well as slowing everything down and moving the body into a rest and digest state.

I often get clients to use it if they have IBS. A lot of times IBS and other stomach issues are linked to stress. Stress is a fight-or-flight response in the body, a sympathetic response. If the body is sympathetic the body is responding like its an emergency, all the blood flow goes to the muscles and it puts everything else on airplane mode. Those who are stressed tend to find the digestion isnt getting the attention it needs. Practising techniques like 4-7-8, which induces a parasympathetic state, will allow the digestion to start working more efficiently.

It comes down to ratios. In laymans terms, every in-breath increases your heart rate and your blood pressure. Every out-breath does the opposite, the heart rate and blood pressure go down. So in essence every in-breath switches us on slightly, and every out-breath switches us off. When your increase your in-breaths because youre stressed, you hit this on switch.

If you balance in-breaths and out-breaths through something like box breathing where you breathe in for four, hold for four, out for four you balance on and off. Its actually very good for accessing a balanced state. Youre balancing your heart rate variability, the space between the beats. Its how you access flow, or get in the zone, if you like.

With 4-7-8 you exhale for twice as long as you inhale, and by doing this youre hitting the off switch. In fact, if you cant remember 4-7-8 then just exhale for double the time. If you do that, youre going to get a similar effect, a parasympathetic response. The extra part of the 4-7-8 is holding the breath for seven, which is what sends the carbon dioxide up.

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How The 4-7-8 Breathing Technique Can Help You Relax And Get To Sleep - Coach