Six small experiments, run on yourself.

The six experiments

One a week, in this order.

Each one is small on purpose. Each one ends in a number you write down, so in six weeks you have something better than a feeling to go on.

1. The comfortable pause

   Each morning before coffee, sit for a minute and breathe quietly through your nose. After a normal breath out, hold your nose and count the seconds until the first clear urge to breathe. Not the longest you can manage. The first urge.

   You measureSeconds to the first urge, every morning for seven days

2. Seven wake times

   Pick one wake time and keep it for seven days, weekends included. Write down the time you actually got up each morning. Regularity does more for most people’s sleep than any amount of extra time in bed.

   You measureThe gap between your earliest and latest wake time that week

3. Light before screens

   Within an hour of waking, ten minutes outside. No sunglasses, no phone in your hand. Cloud counts. The light you take in early sets the clock that decides when you get sleepy later.

   You measureYour energy at two in the afternoon, one to ten, each day

4. The longer exhale

   Five slow breaths through your nose, the breath out longer than the breath in, before the moment that usually winds you up: the inbox, the commute, the meeting. It takes under a minute and nobody can tell you are doing it.

   You measureHow wound up you feel, one to ten, before and after

5. The last hour

   For seven nights, the phone charges outside the bedroom and the last hour before lights out has no screens in it. Read, stretch, talk, take a shower. The hour before bed decides more of the night than the hour you go to bed.

   You measureHow you woke up, one to ten, written down each morning

6. Smaller until it is a seven

   Choose the one change from the last five weeks that helped most. Rate how sure you are that you will keep doing it, from one to ten. Under a seven and you make it smaller until it is a seven. A plan you believe in beats a better plan you do not.

   You measureYour confidence, one to ten, and whether it happened

How to run them

A few rules that make the numbers honest.

• One experiment at a time, a full week eachStacking them hides what worked
• Write the number down the same dayMemory rounds up
• Missed a day? Carry on. Missed two? Shrink itNever miss twice
• Keep what moved your number, drop what did notYour data, your call
• Never do breath holds in water or while drivingEver

This is education, not medical advice. If something here does not feel right for your body, stop and check with your doctor. What is coached and what is referred out is set out in the scope of practice.

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