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Comment by W4ldi | Hacker News Reader

I read about a method years ago. I usually don't have problems falling asleep. But when I do, I do the following:

Try to breath in through one nose hole and breath out through the other. This may sound stupid, but there are two reasons why this works:

1. You focus on doing something else than thinking about stuff that worries you. 2. While doing this your eyes move from left to right. You might remember what hypnotists do: They swing a pendulum from left to right which you have to follow. This eye movement from left to right activates your subconscious part of the brain. I don't know or remember what exactly that does but everytime I use this technique and wake up the next morning I don't remember doing anything after this. Which means I fell asleep.

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In yoga, this technique is called "virtual" Nadi Shodana or alternative nostril breathing. There are many variants, A/B tested for centuries, that might work better for different people.

What if only one nostril is "open" at any given time? That is usually the case for me.

Concentrate on breathing in and out of one side of that nostril. Sounds pretty stupid but it’s no different to OPs suggestion - it will cause the same reactions.

As i said. It's not the breathing that's affecting you. It's the eye movement. You don't even have to try breathing like this. I usually just move my eyes left right.

>Try to breath in through one nose hole and breath out through the other.

wait can everyone consciously do this? i can't

You don't have to be able to do it (you can't).

But if you try to do it, you will concentrate on each nostril in turn and little else, in synchronisation with your breathing, which leads to the kind of mild auto-hypnosis that the GP is talking about.

I have heard about that method, too. If I remember it correctly then that exercise can be used to both calm you down and energize you. It all depends on the direction, if you breath in with your left or your right hole. Unfortunately I don't remember which direction is aligned with the calming effect. This can be an advantage: on different days, try out either way and observe what happens. If this method is more than some spiritual entertainment then there should be a clear difference.

Given that there's no real physical notion of "alignment" at work here, this does seem to sound suspiciously like some pseudo-spiritual entertainment.

Your sibling comment describes a link to the nervous system. If there is a feedback loop then there could be some influence. Personally, I am far from arguing that this is true.

You're right! The sibling comment does describe a behavior that is completely controlled by the autonomous part of the nervous system over which humans have little to no conscious control or ability to override.

Given that pretty much everything in the human body is linked to the nervous system in some manner, it's possible that there might not be a good reason to expect any kind of special feedback loop here.

That seems quite at odds with how nostrils work. Your nostrils alternate opening and closing autonomically.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/30363/why-does-your-nose-get-...

" Throughout the day, they each take breaks in a process of alternating congestion and decongestion called the nasal cycle. At a given moment, if you're breathing through your nose, the lion’s share of the air is going in and out of one nostril, with a much smaller amount passing through the other. Every few hours, your autonomic nervous system, which takes care of your heart rate, digestion and other things you don’t consciously control, switches things up and your other nostril does all the heavy lifting for a little while. The opening and closing of the two passages is done by swelling and deflating erectile tissue - the same stuff that’s at work when your reproductive organs are aroused - up in your nose."

Yes, you overwrite that system.

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