Newsletter 2025-3-2
Topics Covered:
Why so many people have trouble getting restful sleep
The reason sleep is the most important thing in the world
The breathing technique I use to help clients show insomnia who’s boss
Can't Sleep?
Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep is a huge issue among adults today.
Even those of us who generally sleep alright can go through bouts of restless nights every once in a while.
And while one night of shitty sleep isn't going to kill you, we want our default setting to be quality sleep.
This is because sleep is the foundation for physical and mental health.
Why Prioritize Sleep
"If sleep doesn't serve an absolutely vital function, it is the biggest mistake evolution ever made.“
-Allan Rechtschaffen
When you think about it this way, the importance of sleep starts to stare you in the face.
But what does it actually accomplish? What is the body doing while we sleep?
Well, for starters:
Sleep strengthens the immune system.
Sleep consolidates memory.
Sleep processes emotions.
Sleep allows for maintenance of our entire body at the cellular level.
Sleep allows for resilience and adaptability of the nervous system.
Sleep "repairs" the brain by eliminating waste products.
And if we flip this list on its head, it's easy to see why lack of sleep causes so many problems:
Lack of sleep makes it easier to get sick.
Lack of sleep causes forgetfulness.
Lack of sleep leads to emotional dissociation.
Lack of sleep leads to lack of recovery in the body.
Lack of sleep leads to irritability and agitation (nervous system dysregulation).
Lack of sleep can lead to cognitive issues.
Nutrition, exercise, breathing, and all the rest are very important.
But if you're trying to set yourself up to thrive physically, mentally, and emotionally -- sleep is the pillar on which everything else is built.
The Arousal Continuum
Autonomic arousal refers to the level of activity in your nervous system. You can think of it as a spectrum that ranges from stillness all the way to panic.
You don't have to be a biologist to understand that sleep is pretty much all the way at the low end of the spectrum.
So if you're going to bed in a state of high arousal, is it any wonder that you can't get to sleep?
Stressful work days, late night workouts, ruminating thoughts -- these all agitate the nervous system and put it into a state of high alert. And while that's not always bad, bed time is certainly not the time for it.
To prime ourselves for sleep, we need the nervous system to down-shift. The way we make that happen is by slowing our breathing.
Your New Favorite Sleep Aid
Remember the vagus nerve?
That's the nerve pathway that tells the brain what the body is feeling. It also initiates the relaxation response.
Slowing the breathing stimulates the vagus nerve and down-regulates our state from the body up.
This works twice as well if you can put all of your focus into physical sensation, as opposed to thinking during the process.
Martin McPhilimey, a leader in the breath science space and one of my teachers, refers to this practice as "Flow Breathing" because of the effortlessness we're trying to achieve -- the breath just "flowing" out of us like a waterfall.
Here's how to do it.
Tutorial: Bedtime "Flow Breathing" -- 10 minutes
Crawl into bed, ready for sleep.
Take a moment to settle yourself in, doing a quick body scan to get yourself out of your thoughts and into physical awareness. It can be helpful to formally declare to yourself that the time for thinking and problem solving is over until tomorrow.
Check in with your breathing pattern, doing your best to ensure that it's nasal, gentle, slow, and expansive.
When you're ready, begin counting your inhales and exhales. I recommend experimenting with these cadences and choosing whichever feels best:
3s in, 6s out
4s in, 6s out
5s in, 5s out
5s in, 7s out
Once your body gets used to your chosen cadence, no need to focus too intensely on the counting. You can allow it to go into the background of your mind while you instead focus on heavy, sinking relaxation of the entire body.
If at any time your breathing cadence becomes strained or stressful, please feel free to change it. The goal is to relax and tune into the body, not to experience air hunger or intensity in the breathing muscles.
Continue until 10 minutes has passed, or until you fall asleep naturally.
Note: If real-time guidance is helpful, my Guided Breathwork Collection includes a bedtime breathing recording with soothing pulses to help you set the cadence of your inhales and exhales.
Success Story
Here's a little secret: This is the first practice I give to almost all of my 1:1 clients.
And Carly was no different.
Carly and I worked together for only a few sessions. She was experiencing insomnia, PTSD, and hyper-mobility, so it was the perfect opportunity to use my experience with the nervous system and biomechanics.
During the first session we experimented with the various cadences, and she landed on 5:7 as her preferred one. After just a minute or two of practicing it with me on the call, she was already describing her state as "sleepy."
Fast forward to the next session, and she told me -- with a big smile on her face -- that she slept deeply for several nights out of the week, thanks to that practice.
Sometimes it really is that simple.
Physiological interventions like breathing practices don't always solve everyone's problems. But they solve the foundational problem.
And for Carly, it just happened to be the lynchpin for dealing with her insomnia.
To restful sleep,
Griffin
