The best part about this video is that he doesn't make you feel bad about not getting enough sleep. I like the idea that it's still beneficial even to just lay there and get "non sleep deep rest". I do this a lot so that's really encouraging. All the other advice I've seen about sleep stresses how important it is and just make me feel more anxious about the fact that I'm not getting enough. Thanks for this :)

My mom always said, “if you can’t sleep, pretend you’re asleep”. Essentially the same advice!

I had a bad accident years ago and my dad found me wide awake sitting in the den at 3 AM. He asked "What's up" and I told him that I couldn't stop thinking of how I was going to deal with the coming challenges caused by the accident (doctor's appointments, getting rid of my totaled car, ongoing pain etc.) He told me to get a notepad and write down the troubling thoughts so that I would know that I could get up the next day and address the issues because I had the list, therefore no need to keep trying to make a mental list while trying to go to sleep. It worked for me and I still use that advice and it even helps when I have much smaller concerns.

This is one of those UKposts videos that come out of nowhere in your feed and are actually helpful.

Im a registered nurse and most folks resting heart rate is no one near or below 60 while sleeping and the reason I know this is cause I watch there telemetry all night long on a cardiac floor. Best advice for sleep is no caffeine at least 6 hours prior to sleep. Morning caffeine only and then leave it alone the rest of the day and then you will sleep a little better.

I watched a video by Bhagwan Rajneesh about sleeplessness. He said you lie around all day on the sofa or at a desk and then you want to rest again at night?? You need to do something strenuous like gardening, brisk walking, to tire you out to get a good nights sleep.

Knowing why I wake up at 2 or 3 am is gold. I thought it was just me. I have the problem of my mind turning to negative and depressing things as I lie awake but if I can imagine I'm walking in the woods barefoot it soothes me and I can usually sleep.

I haven't slept well for 35 years. Started when I entered peri menopause. No other symptoms, I just stopped sleeping. I can with certainty, say that just lying in bed is NOT restful. Especially if you haven't slept in a couple of days.

I sometimes find looking at the clock helps, because for me one of the things that tends to make it harder to fall back asleep is thinking that it must be almost morning and there isn't enough time to sleep. This is especially true in the winter when the sun isn't as much of a clue.

Never look at the clock. Cover yourself just enough to be warm, keep the sheets to a bare minimum and keep a warmer blanket to the side. If you are warm stick your feet out from the sheets. When u wake i n the middle of the night, DONT START THINKING ABOUT STUFF. Any thoughts that come to mind: picture that thought floating away like a dead leaf on a quiet river. If another thought comes, picture it float away also like a dead leaf on a river. Practice not thinking while focusing on breathing. Your mind is a river and you need to let those dead leaves go, practice Not Thinking every night and you'll be a sleep master in record time.

This goes against what a sleep therapist told me to do. He said to get up out of the bed and read a "boring" book in low light for 10 to 15 minutes and then go back to bed. It was to avoid creating a negative association with the bed which could cause anxiety. However, I didn't feel like that advice was helping me much! I did notice that if I laid in bed I would drift in and out so I was getting some sleep. Whereas if I kept getting up as he suggested, I was dog tired the next day!

All the information coming at us about how important sleep is just adds to my stress about not being able to get back to sleep. This makes me feel much better.

Agree about relaxing and just laying there. I've done that for years. I think about how comfortable I am, how I used to hate getting up for school or work when I wanted to stay in bed. So appreciating the comfort of my bed and just relaxing helps me fall back asleep.

Next week: How to fall asleep during important meetings.

Who else is here in the middle of the night

Disagree about not reading a book. If I'm awake and my thoughts start to go round and round, I read a book that's not very thrilling but still holds my interest. It calms me down, it distracts me from my thoughts and before I know it, I'm back asleep again.

After 40+ years of chronic insomnia trying everything including sleep clinics and pills (rubbish except once in a blue moon and in an emergency), I can confirm that everything he says helps while the usual advice of, "If you can't sleep, get up and do something until you feel sleepy again " doesn't. At least for me, it doesn't. In fact, I've always been worse when I've gotten up and always been better when I've stayed in bed. "Non-sleep deep rest" is very real, so it's important to stay resting, particularly for your eyes, even if you aren't sleeping. To add to it there have been times I've been sure I was awake only to find when I looked at the clock, an hour or two had passed when to me it only seemed like a minute. If you get up you'll miss out on sleep you otherwise would have gotten. The main sleep killer is tension. So whatever you can do to reduce that will help. First off, one night of bad or lost sleep is not going to kill you, so stop worrying. It's the worry as much as anything else that will affect your performance the following day. But do stay away from machinery, please. Find a way to distract your mind from your worries, like engaging in wild, but not so wild you get an adrenalin rush, fantasies that give you a holiday from your normal day-to-day world far away from what's troubling you. And don't ignore physical issues. Have yourself checked for sleep apnea and restricted airways due to allergies or physiology.

Hey guys! I used to have really bad insomnia too. One of the helpful tips I did was to work on increasing my blue light exposure early in the morning and reduce blue light at night to regulate my circadian rhythm. Hope this helps any one of you!

Short and to the point. I will use these tips. Thank you.

The worst thing that I do is get up, and turn on the computer and read the news. That's what I'm doing right now. However, I also decided to click on this video, and it was worth it. I've suddenly got this mid-night insomnia, and I think it was kicked off by the complicated stress of having a sibling die. So, relaxation is what I've got to focus on.

Don't look at the clock is my number one rule. I also put on my sleep mask if I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep. It definitely helps, as it's very soft and total blackout. Knowing this about heart-rate is very valuable. My mom, also an insomniac, always told me, "even if you can't sleep, you can rest". She was a scientist and didn't even know it. Thanks, Doc!

One thing that works for me is actually trying NOT to fall asleep, literally trying to keep my eyes open. It’s counter intuitive but it works. Kind of like when you fall asleep watching tv. I read about POW’s coming to this realization when the anxiety of never knowing when they would be beaten would keep them constantly awake, yet they needed sleep, and this would give them what little sleep they could get.

“I’ve got the biggest sheep farm in the state,” a farmer boasted to his neighbor. “Oh, yeah?” said the friend. “How many sheep do you have?” “I don’t know, every time I try to count them, I fall asleep.”

Wonderful advice, thank you Dr. Breus!

The breathing does help. It´s relaxing, absolutely, but it also keeps our mind from wandering off or thinking of something stressful. I focus on the feeling of cool air entering my nostrils, then warm air being exhaled through the nose, and before I know it, I´m asleep again. I don´t mean to make it sound simplistic because I struggled for decades, but this has been working for me lately and I´m so grateful.

As someone who regularly wakes up in the middle of the night worrying about sleep, I’m going to try out these helpful tips. Thanks!

A bunch of those things have helped me but the one that had by far the most impact is learning breath mindfulness, so I can just focus on the sensations of the breath in the belly while noting "rising" and "falling". Puts me to sleep almost every time, there's literally nothing better on earth to slow down your heartrate while also quieting the thinking/anxious mind, which imo is sleep's biggest enemy.

That 4,7,8 technique really works - thank you

Here's my strategy that I stumbled across a couple of years ago, and it actually did wonders. I'm a fan of old radio shows, and one time after waking up in the middle of the night, I decided to listen to a show, and what I noticed is, I was never catching the end of it. I realized, I actually falling back asleep without realizing it, and so I stopped worrying. I continue to do this. If I wake up in middle of the night and start listening to something, I fall asleep. Part of the trick is having the volume at the right level where it's loud enough to hear, but quiet enough that it's almost a struggle. But it works without fail.

This can be challenging to do, but if I'm dealing with anxiety, I've found that by telling myself after getting in bed that this is the time for rest, that I can resume my worrying tomorrow and blanking out anxious thoughts, really helps.

Sleeping is what I look forward each days, I can't get enough of it!! I need between 10 to 12 hours sleep to function properly during the day ❤

God bless you Doc !

Love the comment “looking for sleep is like looking for love … “ that made me chuckle and seems so obvious now that you’ve said it! Thank you for the breathing technique tip.

Very interesting and helpful. 4-7-8 works for me and that was before seeing this video. I’m retired so a pre breakfast walk or even light cardio is my current key to longevity. Truly detest waking up too early thxs

Try and stay unconscious enough during bathroom visits and don't think of anything about the anxiety of modern life.

That was amazing. Valuable information without any fluff. So many UKposts self help videos are people talking for a long time and not saying anything of use. That was concise, and helpful. Most grateful.

Sometimes I can't sleep (usually because of caffeine or cayenne pepper) and I noticed that if I just lie there awake, relaxed but not sleeping, I would actually be mostly ok in the morning. I always wondered why. Thanks for the explanation. The most important thing is to not worry about not sleeping.

Best informative piece of advice I've heard.Usually they talk and talk.He got straight to the point.Very useful information.Thank you 👍

Absolutely right about not looking at the clock. I worked this out after a few months of broken sleep

I have a house plan in my head for my dream home, so what I do I start by walking into the house and pick a certain room, I then image it's layout, decor etc. My favourite is the master bedroom, I start by walking into that room and start on the layout and even before I get to the ensuite bathroom I always fall asleep! Works every time!

What works for me is counting down from 100 saying each time I go deeper and deeper into relaxation This takes your mind off the merry go round of thoughts and self hypnotises yourself into relaxation I rarely make it to fifty

This was outstanding. Thanks for a wonderfully succinct guide to this issue.

Fantastic doc.! Well needed info!

Wow used to use this method years ago..did well..so well decided didn’t need the method any longer ..so happy to be reunited as was having sleep waking once again..huge thank you..🇨🇦

Thank you for this advice Doctor. So often we've been told to get up and do something until we feel sleepy again. I never found this worked for me.

This is fantastic advice, especially since my capacity to go back to sleep while menopausal has gone out the window. Thanks so much for this!!

Watching this video definitely helped, Thanks Doc.

Loved your video!!! Trying your techniques tonight. I heard more about 4 7 8 later today on NPR, different topic, they were discussing yoga. My sleep habits are horrible and appreciate all tips. Thanks so much.

A big thing I noticed after having my first child and being woken up at night regularly was that if I didn't let my eyes get exposed to bright lights I could fall back asleep much easier.

I had two collapsed lungs three years ago, during a botched surgery. I had several respiratory therapists work on me for several weeks in the hospital. The stuff they taught me enabled me to eventually get rid of the asthma inhaler I had been using for a decade prior. Even with lungs that still show scarring on X-rays. The breathing tip you have here is very good. From what the therapists told me, the holding beat is what does the most. You’ve filled the little air sacs and holding it in really maximizes the oxygen passing into the blood. The craziest night of sleep I had at the hospital I asked the next day what drugs they’d given me - they said just oxygen!

I usually need to get up 1-2 times per night to use the bathroom. One strategy I use to get back to sleep more easily is to *not* turn any lights on. It's good to have something like, perhaps, a small lamp in another room, just so you can see enough to get around. I do find not turning on lights makes a difference.

i agree dont get up if i get up it enforces the belief that cant sleep when at the same time my body and mind wants to sleep so i want my sleep back on track your advices is spot on thank you

Thanks a lot for your advice. It really worked !! I woke up in the midnight yesterday and then slept again soon by using your methods....😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

You described my sleep pattern to a tee! It's a given that I wake up around 2 or 3 am and it seems like it takes about an hour (if I'm lucky) to fall back to sleep. I'm less likely to allow myself to be irritated or worried after hearing this - thank you!!!

You've provided some excellent suggestions, I use them all the time and they do work. My breathing is more like 3, 5, 7. I also read, actual books, no glaring screens.

Thanks for this education. I can now get rid my worries. Small hour sleep and has many hours just lying in bed.Then shower and work.That is why it is still amazing that even having small hours sleep, I can still work actively and even not feel tired when working.

What I do sometimes is mimic what I do before going to sleep in the first place, which is to read for ten minutes or so, preferably something that isn't too interesting. I also try your 4-7-8 breathing. Thank you for that.

Oooh, the breathing technique is exactly what I was looking for! Me waking up to pee can't be helped at this stage in pregnancy, but today my heart rate is the real problem. The breathing does slow down my pulse as long as I keep it up, so I at least feel more relaxed. Maybe it'll finally do the trick to let me sleep. I'm gonna need that sleep once I go into labour, which at this point could be any moment now.

I actually learn this technique that I personally discover and everything he said is true. Whether it's short or long sleep it is worth it! I hope that helps everyone here.

Thank you. This certainly was some useful info.

Thank you for this. I thought I knew all the good advice on this subject that ever existed! I’ll try 4|7|8 breathing, which I already know.

I watched your video last night and tried your advice and it worked. I was surprised I could do it on the fist try. I woke up as usual sometime during the night. I suspect around 2 or 3am as usual. But instead of looking at the time or getting up, I did the breathing and fell asleep. I did wake up 2 more time, but also resisted the urge to get up to go to the bathroom, was slightly harder but manageable. So this I can say works. Thanks!

Great advice. Thank you

Useful. Informative. Thank you.

I read till the first yawn and off the sleep I go. Works every time!

I’ve struggled with sleep issues all my life and he described details no doctor has ever mentioned! I shall be looking at more of your videos and website!😊

Great, short practical advice. It worked for me🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

Ive done that dont look at the clock trick yearssssss ago and it works!

When I had a challenging work project, sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night with an idea. It would keep me up because I was afraid I might not remember it. I solved the problem by putting pencil and paper on my nightstand. Worked great! I’d wake up, jot the idea down and my brain could relax and I’d be back asleep in seconds.

Great tips! I've been waking up around 2:30 am lately because I'm warm or hot, so I get up, look at the clock, go to the restroom, but can't fall asleep. This happens if I had a stressful day, so when I wake up, my mind goes into overdrive. I've found if I'm calmer and quieter before bedtime, then later when I wake up I'm able to fall back to sleep okay . I'm aware I'm about to enter a hypnagogic state because I feel cooler. I may or may not sleep, but at least like you said I have deep rest. 😴💤🐻💤

This was incredible info.

Thank you! I have a job where I have to wake up at about 1:30 AM, and sometimes I wake up just 4 hours after falling asleep. I crash at random times in the afternoon, so I never feel rested. I'm going to be a bit more mindful of my eating and caffeine levels from now on, along with these tips.

Hello doctor I hope you're doing well i just wanted to say thank you I tried the breathing technique and it worked I could never get back to sleep and I always woke up and I would be so tired but not anymore it worked for me thanks again ❤

I don’t typically have trouble sleeping, but I am so happy I found your channel - you are particularly comforting!

Enjoyed this thanks!

Good advice. Thanks. Understanding the 'why' always helps.

That’s good to hear that quiet resting is still rejuvenating for the body somewhat equivalent to actually sleeping.

That's great advice!

Wonderful Explanation 🙏

I'm in constant pain with my left leg, and lower back with neuropraxia and sleeping is a nightmare for me. Even with heavy medication it's a nightmare. Thank you I'm going tonight going to try it definitely

I was never a midnight snacker, but I have found that when waking up at 2-3, a light snack has really been doing the trick for me...something comforting and light. You just have 2 worry about brushing and turning on bright lights at weird times...neighbors, lol.

This is fantastic advice and similar to what I’ve been doing for years to help battle my insomnia. Great to know that I’ve been doing more or less the right thing. Thank you!

Thank you so much! I'm subscribing!

Thank you so very much Doc!!❤ After three decades, on nights in the ICU, I really struggle…

After my nightly bathroom break, I can rarely fall back to sleep. Then I'm exhausted all day. I tried your breathing pattern to resume sleeping after that 2 am bathroom break. Finally! Something simple and free that works!

I've been doing this for a few weeks now, it really helps me to go to sleep 😴 But I didn't know there was a video on it, wow ! I remembered my nurse telling me to breathe in hold it a breath out several times to relax.

Thank you Doctor. I just wanted to share something that I learned in my teens. There was a study about sleep done by the Air Force, probably in the 1960s. They wanted to determine what would happen to their pilots and other Airmen with less sleep. Here is what I remember, the study detrmined that the human body can still function well with only 4 hours of sleep. That knowledge helps me to relax, not get anxious, when I cannot go to sleep. It is kind of like what you said, paraphrase, "relax, you have been up all night before".

Excellent information. ❤️

My favorite book from childhood, which I am listening to as an audiobook, always put me back to sleep in 30 minutes. Though my sleep quality has degraded ever since, this still works flawlessly.

One trick which often works for me: I found that the routine of getting into bed, curling up and snuggling down, and particularly the warming sensation of the bedclothes served as a sleep trigger for me. Since I often wake up after a vivid dream or just a bit hot anyway, I now deliberately throw off the bedclothes if I wake in the night and allow my body to cool right down. I then put the covers back on and re-start the warming process. Quite often the next thing I know the alarm's kicking off.

I always found that getting lost in thought helps me to sleep, especially if it's a relaxing memory. I think it's similar to the counting sheep principle.

One thing that works always for me, is to recall in my memory a time when I had to get up but was so groggy and tired I just wished I could keep sleeping longer. Imagining that feeling, combined with the current awareness that I can indulge in that right now, (I don't have to get up!), instantly puts me back in the mood to sleep. Hope this can be helpful for someone else too!

Thanks for the biological reasons behind waking up at 2-3am. I saw my dad facing this issue and that was one reason why I didn’t stress too much about it when it happened to me. If I don’t fall asleep right away, I usually read on my Kindle until I fall asleep or watch a UKposts video. It’s only when these don’t work that I get worried. But now I will try the breathing exercises first. Thanks again.

3:04 finally a reason for the breathing technique Also learnt about Non-sleep deep rest being worth some sleep

Thank You sooo Much!!!!!

Useful and comforting video ! Thank's !! 😊

Thanks. Get back to sleep at night is difficult. Strangely, I have done the breathing exercise and it works. Since I have not seen your video, this exercise came automatically to me and of course I did not follow your timing. I just breathe in, hold a while and slowly breathe out. Great advice!

His breathing technique works for me about 50% of the time for 3am wakeups. It does take practice, and sometimes works in 2 times as long as my heart rate doesnt go up because of being freaked at the thought of being sleep deprived. It's always a hideous day with a racey adrenaline heart. Guaranteed. I take comfort in knowing I'm not the only person at work (where um...no, "working from home" isn't possible)....who slept less than 3 hours.

Really nice, thank you!

Very interesting n informative upload. Often get up in middle of nite. Will try ur advice n techniques. Kudos. New subscriber because of this vid. Anticipating ur next one. Peace