Insomnia
Let’s see where you’re at.
No fancy gadgets, just a timer and your breath. A simple, non-invasive test that gives us valuable insight into your breathing pattern and respiratory health. In the Buteyko Breathing Method, it’s known as the Control Pause (CP). In Oxygen Advantage®, it’s known as the BOLT Score: Body Oxygen Level Test.
What about insomnia?
When your body is tired, but your brain doesn't seem to have received the memo.
Perhaps your biggest problem isn't snoring or waking with an obvious breathing event. Perhaps you simply can't switch off.
You get into bed exhausted, but suddenly your mind is wired. It replays conversations from the day and also thinks about tomorrow before it arrives. And now the fear of wondering how much sleep you're going to get joins the party.
Or perhaps you fall asleep easily enough, but wake at 2am, 3am or 4am and suddenly you're wide awake. You might toss and turn, sigh, take bigger breaths, change positions and become increasingly frustrated that you're still not asleep.
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Your nervous system and your breathing
Sleep requires a shift towards a state where your body feels safe enough to let go. If your nervous system is constantly operating in a state of heightened alertness, settling into sleep can become more difficult. With my clients with sleep issues, I make a huge point of emphasising what I call ‘Book Ends of the Day’. If we're racing to the finish line and then expect our head to hit the pillow and get to sleep shortly after, then we need to rethink this. Our worlds are getting busier, but it's critical that we create some down time as we're winding down into the later part of the evening. This is also where light becomes really important. Your body has its own internal clock, and light is one of the strongest signals that helps set it. As evening approaches, your body should naturally begin increasing melatonin, the hormone involved in signalling that it's time to prepare for sleep. At the other end of the night, cortisol naturally rises towards waking, helping your body become more alert and ready to start the day. So if we're flooding our eyes with bright artificial light late into the evening, particularly light from screens, we're giving the brain a very different message from the one it would naturally receive as the sun goes down. Evening light exposure can suppress or delay the normal rise in melatonin and shift the timing of your circadian rhythm. This is why my advice often includes reducing screen time in the later part of the evening, ideally switching off around 9.30pm, dimming the lights around the house and allowing your environment to start telling your brain that the day is coming to an end. If you spend a lot of time on screens in the evening, you might also consider blue-light-blocking glasses. I don't see these as a magic sleep solution, but they can be another tool to reduce short-wavelength light exposure in the hours before bed. And then there are the things we put into our bodies. Caffeine can hang around much longer than you might realise. I generally recommend avoiding coffee and other significant sources of caffeine for at least 6 hours before bed. Research has found that caffeine consumed even 6 hours before bedtime can significantly disrupt sleep. And alcohol is another one I want you to think about. You might feel that a glass of wine helps you fall asleep, but falling asleep faster isn't the same as getting better sleep. Alcohol can alter sleep architecture and reduce REM sleep, with even relatively low doses shown to affect REM sleep. For anyone struggling with sleep, I recommend avoiding alcohol close to bedtime and experimenting with giving your body a proper alcohol-free window before sleep. This is particularly relevant if you also snore or have OSA, as alcohol has been associated with worsening snoring, AHI and oxygen saturation in people susceptible to sleep apnoea. And if you're someone who has dysfunctional breathing, this can add to your mind and body staying in a more alert state rather than moving towards rest and recovery. So imagine if your breathing is a little faster than what I would like it to be, and most people have this problem. Your breathing pattern may be giving your nervous system more signals of activation when what we're really trying to create is calm. We need to recreate this language of the breath to show calm and pave the way towards rest and recovery. This is where breathing can become one part of creating the conditions for better sleep. Sleep is also where important processes such as memory consolidation and the clearance of metabolic waste take place. These are the stages of sleep that we should be aiming to experience across the night. It can be interesting for those with smartphones, Whoop, Oura Rings etc. to see where they sit within these broad ranges. I also suggest looking at your nighttime respiratory rate as another piece of information. I'm more interested in the pattern and whether your respiratory rate is consistently elevated than one particular number. As a rough guide: Stage 1: 1–5% Stage 2: 40–55% Deep Sleep: 20–35% REM: 15–30% These ranges are a guide rather than a target you need to hit every night. Your sleep architecture naturally varies between people and from night to night. I also remind people of a social hangover analogy. So if you have varying days where you go to bed substantially later and expect to get back into flow the next day, think again. Those who are ‘nanas’ in the week and then take advantage of Netflix binging on Friday and Saturday can throw their natural circadian rhythm into a spin. This is why I think having some consistency around your bedtime and wake time is so important.
We don't force sleep. We create the conditions for it.
One of the things I teach is how to use breathing to help your body move towards a calmer physiological state.
We work on developing breathing that is nose, quieter, slower and lighter and lighter already setting the scene of internal calm. Rather than trying to take increasingly bigger breaths to “relax”, we often do the opposite.
We reduce unnecessary breathing effort. We soften the breath. We allow the body to experience a little air hunger without creating distress.
Changes in CO₂ are also involved in the body's regulation of breathing and arousal, which is one reason I find this part of the Buteyko approach so interesting for this group. Often their frustrations of not being able to sleep, can blow off too much CO₂, which can create arousal in both the mind and breath.
Over time, the goal is for this quieter breathing pattern to become less something you have to consciously “do” and more something your body naturally returns to.
Buteyko isn't CBT-I
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is considered the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia, including in Australian sleep medicine guidance. But that doesn't mean breathing has no place in the conversation.
A 2026 systematic review of slow breathing techniques practised before bedtime found improvements in self-reported sleep quality and sleep duration, although the findings from objective sleep measurements were inconclusive.
So I see the Buteyko Breathing Method as another tool in the toolbox, particularly when your breathing pattern and physiological arousal are contributing to how difficult it is to settle.
My job is to create the conditions that make it easier for your body to get there. Our breath is the gate way to do this.
Want to start learning? Breathing 101
Learn the foundations of functional breathing and discover the skills no-one ever taught you. A 75-minute introduction to the Buteyko Breathing Method, with practical exercises you can take into everyday life.
Or ready to explore your breathing?
Let’s talk about your story, what you’re experiencing, what you notice, and explore whether breathing retraining could benefit you.