4-7-8 breathing for sleep: how to do it, and what it can (and can’t) do

4-7-8 breathing is a simple counting pattern: in through your nose for 4, hold for 7, out through your mouth for 8. You can do it lying in bed with the light off, and four rounds take about a minute. It won’t knock you out like a switch. What it can do is slow you down, give a busy mind something to count, and make lying awake feel less like a fight.

Where it comes from

The pattern was made popular in 2015 by Dr Andrew Weil, an American doctor who works in integrative medicine. It has its roots in pranayama, the breathing practices of yoga (Cleveland Clinic).

How to do it in bed

1. Lie on your back or your side, whichever is comfortable. You don’t need to sit up.
2. Rest the tip of your tongue just behind your top front teeth. Keep it there the whole time. This is part of the original method; if it feels odd, don’t worry about it.
3. Breathe all the way out through your mouth.
4. Close your mouth and breathe in quietly through your nose for a count of 4.
5. Hold your breath for a count of 7. Don’t strain.
6. Breathe out through your mouth for a count of 8, slowly, like letting air out of a balloon.
7. That’s one round. Do four. Then let your breathing go back to normal.

Feeling a little lightheaded the first few times is common, because you’re breathing more slowly than usual. If it feels unpleasant, stop and breathe normally. If you have a heart or breathing condition, or you’re pregnant, check with your GP before practising breath-holding.

The counts don’t have to be seconds. What matters is the shape: the breath out is twice as long as the breath in. If you can’t hold for 7 yet, count faster.

I’ll be honest: I struggle to hit 4, 7 and 8 exactly. Some nights I can, some nights I can’t. I don’t beat myself up about it, I just do it for as long as I can. It still works for me, and that’s the point. It’s meant to calm you down, not give you something else to get right.

What the research says (honestly)

Not much yet, and it’s worth knowing that before you try it.

The study most often quoted is from 2022, in the journal Physiological Reports. Researchers asked 43 healthy young adults, aged 19 to 25, to do three short sets of 4-7-8 breathing. Straight afterwards, both groups (those who were short of sleep and those who weren’t) had a lower heart rate and lower blood pressure.

That’s a good sign: a slower heart is part of what your body does as it gets ready to sleep. But the study didn’t measure sleep itself, it was small, and everyone in it was young and healthy.

So if you’ve read that 4-7-8 breathing makes you fall asleep in 60 seconds, treat that as a claim, not a finding. Think of it as a way to wind down, not a sleeping pill.

If the hold doesn’t suit you

Some people find holding their breath makes them feel more wound up, not less. That’s fine. Skip the hold.

The NHS breathing exercise for stress has no hold at all: breathe gently into your belly, in through your nose for a count of 5 and out through your mouth for a count of 5, for at least five minutes. You can do it lying on your bed. Its advice is to make it a regular habit, which is good advice for any of these.

Or try 5 finger breathing: trace around your hand, breathing in as you go up each finger and out as you come down. It gives your hands something to do as well as your head. And if you like counting in fours, box breathing is the steady, even version.

When your mind is the problem, not your breathing

Counting works because it gives your thoughts somewhere to go. But at 3am, when the to-do list is loud, counting to seven can turn into one more thing to get right.

That’s when it can help to let someone else do the counting. A voice in your ears, telling you what to notice and when to breathe out, asks nothing of you except to listen. If waking in the night is your pattern, our article on waking up at 3am explains why it happens.