Breathing exercises for sleep: do they help you fall asleep?

How to use breathing at bedtime

Breathing exercises can’t make you fall asleep, but they can help you stop trying so hard, which is often what keeps people awake. Try this:

1. Get comfortable in bed, lying on your back or side, with the light off.
2. Breathe in gently through your nose for about 4 seconds.
3. Breathe out slowly for about 6 to 8 seconds. Let the out-breath be the long, easy part.
4. Keep going for 5 to 10 minutes. If your mind wanders, bring it back to counting the out-breath.
5. If you’re still awake after about 20 minutes and getting frustrated, get up and do something quiet in dim light until you feel sleepy.

Exercises that suit bedtime include 4-7-8 breathing, resonance breathing and humming breath. If the long hold in 4-7-8 feels like effort, leave it out.

What the research shows

The direct evidence is thin. A small study in Taiwan compared 14 people with insomnia with 14 good sleepers. When the people with insomnia practised slow breathing at six breaths a minute for 20 minutes before bed, they fell asleep faster, woke less and slept more efficiently, measured overnight in a sleep lab. It was a small study without a randomised control group.

4-7-8 breathing, probably the most popular sleep breathing technique online, has never been tested for sleep in a trial. One study of 43 young adults found it changed heart rate variability in the short term, but it didn’t measure sleep.

Breathing exercises reduce stress and anxiety in trials (see stress and anxiety), and worry is a common reason for lying awake, so it is reasonable to think they may help some people. But we grade the evidence for sleep itself as weak.

If you have insomnia

Insomnia means regularly finding it hard to get to sleep or stay asleep, and feeling tired during the day. If it has lasted for months, the treatment with the best evidence is cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). GPs now offer it rather than sleeping pills, which are rarely prescribed. Relaxation techniques, including breathing, are often part of it. Talk to your GP, who may be able to refer you or point you to a digital CBT-I programme.

What about mouth taping?

Taping your mouth shut at night has become popular online, with claims that it improves sleep. A 2025 review of 10 studies found little good evidence of benefit, and warned of a risk of suffocation if your nose becomes blocked. We don’t recommend it. See nose breathing.