Breathing exercises for sleep
Search for breathing exercises for sleep and you will be offered a dozen patterns with different numbers. Much the same list comes back for stress and for anxiety, which tells you something: the patterns are not really organised by what they are for.
They are not as different from one another as the numbers suggest either, and the things they have in common are more useful than the names.
This page describes what those patterns share, what separates them, and what to look for in one. It cannot tell you what any of them will do for you, and anywhere you read that a breathing pattern will put you to sleep, you are reading a promise nobody can keep.
What the night-time patterns have in common
Almost all of them make the out-breath longer than the in-breath. Extended exhale does it by ratio — four in, six out. 4-7-8 does it by count, with the longest phase of the three at the end.
Most of them are slow: somewhere between four and seven breaths a minute, against twelve to twenty at rest.
And most of them ask very little of you. A pattern you have to concentrate on is a pattern keeping you awake, which is why the ones people keep using at night tend to be the ones with the fewest moving parts.
Holds, and why they get in the way at night
A breath hold is the part of a pattern you have to brace for. Box breathing holds twice per cycle and 4-7-8 holds for seven counts, and plenty of people find both perfectly comfortable lying down.
But a hold is also the part most likely to go wrong when you are close to sleep — you lose the count, or you reach the end short of air, and either one wakes you up a little. Patterns with no holds at all avoid the problem entirely. Extended exhale and resonance breathing are both in that group.
Counting, and not having to
The other thing that gets in the way is the counting itself. Counting is a task, and a task is the opposite of what you are lying there trying to do.
This is the one place a timer earns its keep over a written instruction. If something else is keeping the pace — a tone that rises and falls, a figure that grows and shrinks — you can stop counting and follow it instead, with your eyes shut and the phone face down.
On a phone the timer runs with sound and haptics and keeps going with the screen locked, which is the difference between following a pattern and watching a screen at bedtime.
Where to start
If you want the simplest thing that works at night, extended exhale is it: four seconds in, six out, no holds, nothing to lose count of. The timer below opens on it.
If you would rather have an even pace with no long phase at all, resonance breathing is five seconds each way. If you want the counting to be the point — and some people do, because it gives the mind something narrow to hold — 4-7-8 is the one built around it.
None of these require you to finish. Stopping in the middle because you have stopped paying attention is the intended outcome, not a failure of the session.
Extended exhale — try it here
The timer below is the app, running in this page. It opens on extended exhale — four seconds in, six out.
The pattern In 4 s · Out 6 s
Common questions
Which breathing pattern do people use most at night?
4-7-8 is the most widely known by name, and the patterns with no holds — extended exhale and resonance breathing — are the ones people tend to stay with, because there is less to keep track of.
Why is the out-breath longer in most of these?
A longer out-breath is what makes the pattern slow without making the in-breath strenuous. It is the part of the cycle you can stretch the furthest with the least effort.
Should I use a screen at bedtime?
The timer here works with the screen off on a phone: it carries the pattern with sound and with haptics, so you can put the phone face down after you press Begin.
How long should I do it for?
Set the minutes before you start. There is no length that has to be reached, and falling out of the pattern part-way through is an ordinary way for a night-time session to end.
Are these the same exercises people use for stress or anxiety?
Largely the same list, yes — the patterns are defined by their timing rather than by an occasion, so the same ones appear under every heading. What changes is which features matter to you at the time: at night, fewer things to count and no holds to brace for.
Is this a substitute for seeing a doctor about sleep?
No. Breathing exercises are something people do; they are not medical advice, and this page is not a substitute for talking to a doctor about persistent sleep problems.
The app
On your phone it runs with sound and haptics, and it works with no connection at all.