This is the final part of a three-part series on the No Panic breathing exercise. In this series, we are focusing on when to do the breathing exercise. It’s all about the timing.
Anxiety can cause people to lose sleep night after night. All that sleep deprivation mounts up, so they are too tired to do what they want to do, and even too tired to manage their anxiety.
I want all of you to sleep well every night, so I will explain how you can improve your sleep just by doing the breathing exercise.
We recommend people have a calming routine before they go to bed. This can include the breathing exercise. It is a good idea to do the breathing exercise just before you go to bed, so you go to bed feeling calm.
Some people have lots of anxious thoughts chasing each other around their minds when they go to bed. They may not be as good at maintaining a pre-sleep routine; they might not bother with a pre-sleep routine.
A great thing about the breathing exercise is that you can do it anywhere, and you don’t have to be sitting up. Just as you can do the breathing exercise while walking around a busy shopping centre, you can do the breathing exercise while lying in bed. You can do the breathing exercise to focus your mind away from all those anxious thoughts, and to slow everything down until you drift off to sleep.
So now you’re asleep. Suddenly you’re woken up in panic. Perhaps you had a nightmare, or anxiety decided to wake you up like children who doesn’t want to wait for their parents to get out of bed. Either way, you’re awake, and feeling anxious. You may even be having a panic attack.
At this point, the mistake people make is to try to get back to sleep. It is natural to want to go back to sleep, but you are unlikely to get back to sleep quickly.
To limit how much sleep you lose, you can get out of bed to spend 30 minutes or so calming your anxiety. While out of bed, you can do the breathing exercise. The best times to do the breathing exercise are after you get out of bed, and just before you go back to bed. Even if you wake up a few times, this way you are limiting how much sleep you lose, and that should make a difference over time.
It is common for people to wake up in the morning feeling anxious. The anxiety they have through the day can stem from the anxiety with which they awoke. It is important to get on top of this anxiety as quickly as you can. One way to do this, is to start doing the breathing exercise as soon as you wake up. If you want to spend 10 minutes doing the breathing exercise when you wake up every day, you could get up slightly earlier.
If you already do the breathing exercise at a different time as part of your morning routine, you can still do it at that time in addition to doing it when you wake up. If you don’t usually do the breathing exercise in the morning, other good times to do the breathing exercise may be after you get dressed and after you’ve had your breakfast.
Doing the breathing exercise may not help you sleep perfectly, but I hope doing the breathing exercise helps you sleep better. Then you’ll have more energy for going out, and managing anxiety throughout the day, including at mealtimes.
