Trouble Sleeping? What To Use To Fall Asleep

Do you or someone in your family have trouble trying to fall asleep?  Have you spent endless nights wishing you could fall asleep while you watch the minutes and hours tick away?

I know what it feels like.  After my Mom passed away 4 years ago, I began having trouble trying to fall asleep for over a year.  I’d wake up exhausted each morning and found myself anxious throughout the day, rarely being able to rid my racing mind with restorative sleep.

I finally came to find out that I was suffering from years of Celiac, which was heightened with the loss of my Mom.  After three months of eliminating wheat, barley, rye, and malt, my anxiety and lack of sleep subsided.  

I was lucky.  I only suffered like this for a year.  According to a study by Consumer Reports, 27% of US adults said they have trouble trying to fall asleep or staying asleep on most nights.  It’s estimated that 68% or 164 million Americans struggle with sleep at least once a week.

But even today, when I’m working on a big project or have a lot of things going on, it’s hard to shut my brain down at night.  Racing thoughts keeps my brain active, making it incredibly difficult to turn it off and get to sleep.  Checking the clock only heightens my racing mind, causing anxiety over the fear of not being able to fall asleep.

Fall Asleep Again

I have tried a number of sleep trackers over the years.  At the peak of my year of sleepless nights, I found the trackers depressing, as they only seem to ingrain more my deficit sentence.

Nowadays, I enjoy them much more.  But sleep trackers are just that…trackers.  They don’t tell you how to fall asleep.

2breathe is the first “tracker” I have found that is a sleep inducer as well; it helps you fall asleep.  I have often thought that if I just knew how to slow down my breathing, it would help me to fall asleep. 2breathe teaches you how to do this.

2breathe uses a soft belt around your stomach with a Bluetooth sensor and an app to help you concentrate on your breathing.  It guides your breathing to you fall asleep through tones of when to inhale and exhale.

The 2breathe app shows an upper torso of a person on the app and when you breathe with the sensor on, as you fill up your lungs, you see the lungs fill up on the torso as well.  

2breathe has two main options:

1.  Breathe – good for during the day to help calm your mind and relax through breathing
2.  Sleep – good before you go to bed to prepare yourself to fall asleep

2Breathe induces sleep by giving you a 10 minute, personalized pre-sleep breathing session that helps you relax your mind and body for sleep.

People who have used 2Breathe to help them sleep each night for awhile say that the breathing tones have trained their brains to relax and get their breathing in sync with the breathing tones much sooner now.  The breathing tones and music is real-time, patterned after your monitored breathing pattern to make it easier to shift your breathing pattern slowly to prepare for sleep. The Sleep session lasts 10 minutes.

Besides some initial instructions, there are no other instructions to disrupt the pre-sleep cycle, just follow the breathing tones.

2breathe will help you sleep again…and often.  It is recommended that you use 2breathe at four times a week to begin training your mind and body.  The app will track your breathing and the minutes it took you to fall asleep.  

In the morning, you can look at the app to see your sleep report and see how long it took you to fall asleep.  It even shows you every breath you took and how much in sync you were with the tones.

You can also fill out a sleep diary to easily document how many times you woke up during the night and how quickly it was to fall asleep again, to get a pattern of your sleep.

Some people report using 2breathe in the middle of the morning a second time when they have trouble trying to fall asleep again.  And because of its size, 2breathe is easy to take with you when traveling to help you sleep again no matter where you are.

Features:

• Comes with a belt with a sensor and free app to help you breathe in preparation for sleep
• Uses low energy Bluetooth frequencies to communicate with your app
• Clinically proven to help you fall asleep
• Can also help calm you during the day with the Breathe cycle

Pros:

• A drug-free way to help you fall asleep
• The tones are soothing, not alarming, so your brain isn’t stimulated
• No wires whatsoever, information is transmitted wirelessly to and from your app
• Helps you understand your breathing pattern and adjust it as necessary to induce sleep
• FDA cleared, non-invasive device
• The belt is very comfortable and not restrictive
• The 2breathe sensor automatically turns off once you have begun sleeping
• The app notifies you on your phone/tablet to fill out your sleep journal to keep track of your history

Cons:

• You need to have the 2breathe app open on your phone and tablet by your bed to use
• Unless you use ear pods, the musical tones may disturb your partner
• May cause some anxiety at first as you get used to the tones – can get around this by using the Breathe function during the day to train your mind
• A little pricey
• Does not work with Android at this time, only Apple iOS

 

2breathe is $189.95 on Amazon with free shipping.

 

A Mom’s Perspective

Don’t think you’ll ever fall asleep quickly again or have a full night’s rest?   It is estimated that Americans spent over $41 billion on sleep aids and remedies in 2015.  According to Natana Raj, an analyst with BCC Research in Wellesley, Mass, this number is expected to grow to $52 billion by 2020!

With a new baby in the house, worrying about aging parents, keeping up with your job and family, scheduling family time around practices, tournaments, awards assemblies and more, it’s no wonder we have trouble sleeping.

But don’t fret, there’s hope for you!  2breathe is a great drug-free way to train your body and mind to fall asleep.  By concentrating on the tones, you don’t have time to focus on the thoughts of the day.  It’s like having a personal breathing coach with you at night, you are no longer alone in your quest to fall asleep!

Using 2breathe takes some patience, but you should be able to see results within the first few weeks os use.  The makers of 2breathe are so confident in their product, that they offer a 60-day money back guarantee and unlimited support.

Could you use some better sleep at night?  Give 2breathe a try.