Dr. Buteyko developed two simple rules in relation to sleep and how to prevent insomnia and other sleep-related symptoms and health problems with easier breathing during sleep:
- Go to sleep when you are really sleepy (not by time as many people do).
- Get out of the bed in the morning (do not stay in bed once you woke up in the morning).
Other known or previous ideas related to the original Buteyko breathing method and observations of Soviet doctors teaching the Buteyko method are following:
- students naturally get less sleep with easier breathing, down to 2 hours of sleep at high 2-3 min CP, as for yoga masters (in relation to sleep duration and breath holding abilities)
- mouth breathing during sleep produces many negative effects and can be prevented using mouth taping
- supine sleep or sleeping on the back causes heavier breathing and worsening of many health problems and symptoms (including asthma, heart disease, bronchitis, etc.) and can be prevented with various techniques.
The NormalBreathing course includes these new additional details:
– A great emphasis on the morning CP as the main parameter used by breathing students to measure their physical health and record it in their daily logs
– The Breathing-Sleep Chart that provide a more detailed link about expected duration of natural sleep (in number of hours) and body oxygen test result (the morning CP)
– The systematic and ordered approach to using sleep-related techniques (so that to apply most influential methods first and then proceed to more advanced methods). These techniques include testing sleep positions, development of ideas related to sleeping sitting, effects of nutrients, exercise, and other factors on sleep, development and use of swaddling methods.
The video below “Buteyko breathing and sleep” features Dr. Artour Rakhimov who provides a short overview of main methods known for the original Buteyko method and how sleep is addressed during the NormalBreathing course: