Dr. Michael Breus

It's actually physiologically impossible to do.

So we're distracting the brain by doing the counting, the thing with our fingers,

And we're lowering our heart rate because this breathing technique is designed specifically to lower heart rate.

Now, one last thing, Dwayne, that I have to be careful about is when I first tried this, I'm just going to be honest with you.

It was kind of hard for me to hold my breath for seven and push for eight.

So I modified the technique and I did four, five, six breathing for two weeks.

Then I moved it to four, six, seven breathing.

Then I did four, seven, eight breathing.

So I don't want anybody to be discouraged because they're having a hard time because the last thing we want to do is make this stressful, right?

Because remember, we want our stress to go down, not up.

So,

If you want to do four, five, six breathing with the fingers and picturing the number as a start for two weeks and then move to four, six, seven, go for it.

That's what we have found to be unbelievably effective overall.

Now, there are instances where somebody gets through this whole four, seven, eight, gets through all 20, and they're still awake, okay?

Here's what I would tell you to do at this point in time.

You have two options.

One,

get up and get out of bed.

Now, for a lot of people, I don't like them to get up and get out of bed.

Only if their heart is starting to beat faster or if they have anxiety, then go ahead and get out of bed.