Sleep is the behavioral and neurological state in which your body rests. It’s essential for proper, healthy functioning of the body’s systems. The average adult needs at least seven hours sleep each night. Those who frequently get less are more likely to suffer from health problems including heart disease, asthma, obesity, depression and diabetes. Despite the undesirable effects, more than a third of adults in the US regularly get by on fewer than 7 hours sleep, and sleep deprivation is becoming a public health epidemic. Worldwide, between 35% and 50% of adults show symptoms of insomnia.
Poor sleep can be caused by many aspects of modern life – backlit computer screens, light bulbs, mobile technology and the blurring of boundaries between work and down-time all result in a chronic imbalance in the autonomic stress response. This “exaggerated and maladaptive neurobiological and cognitive–emotional reactivity to stress” is a common marker of insomnia.
Insomnia has major implications for health and quality of life. Every year, around 109,000 road traffic accidents and 6,400 fatal crashes in the US happen as the result of a sleep-deprived driver. Medical costs are high, with 4% of Americans relying on potentially habit-forming hypnotic drugs such as benzodiazepines, which can disturb sleep patterns and produce side effects including withdrawal, suppressed respiration, increased risk of death, depression, and possibly cancer. And sleep deprivation costs the economy billions of dollars in sick leave, low productivity and medical bills.
Scientists have suggested that natural interventions such as breathing, relaxation and sleep hygiene techniques, which all improve sleep quality and duration, may be more effective long-term than the use of hypnotic drugs in addressing the global issue of insomnia.
This audio from Oxygen Advantage® founder and Director of Education & Training Patrick McKeown leads you through guided breathing and relaxation to help with insomnia. Insomnia and sleep difficulties are faced by millions of us every night. When we don’t sleep well at night, we lose our ability to function at our best the following day.
This 20-minute video is designed to help ease those difficulties and relax your body and mind. Simply play the video as you are going to bed and let Patrick’s calming voice guide your breathing and send you off to a deep sleep.
Alternatively, you can listen on Spotify at the link below.
If you have difficulty falling asleep or you wake during the middle of the night – simply play the audio
If that doesn’t work, then play it again.
Sleep tight!
The Oxygen Advantage Team
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