Hitting The Snooze Button Saved This Man's Life

If you're one of those people who are known for being late, putting your boss in a rage because of it, or disrupting plans with your mates, then tell them this: The snooze button saves lives.

We're all guilty of giving ourselves a bit of extra time in bed in the mornings, repeatedly smacking our phones until we find the snooze feature. However, every now and again you need to find a legitimate reason that can justify you making yourself late.

Raymond Bowling of Austin, Indiana, has a great excuse, because as it turns out, his decision to have a lie in pretty much saved his life.

He had originally got up to go to the bathroom and get ready for the day, but retreated back to the comfort of his bed, deciding a little more kip was in order. Minutes later a tree branch (a mammoth, gargantuan branch), came crashing through the roof, landing right where he would have been if he was brushing his teeth or weighing himself.

"[I] decided to let the snooze go off one more time and laid back down," Raymond told WAVE 3. "I never do that. The limb came through literally minutes later before the snooze went off again. And that's exactly where I would have been standing."

It's not apparent what caused the chunk of tree to come crashing through his ceiling, but a storm warning was reportedly issued to the area he lives in that night.

So, the message to take from all of this is that sleep saves lives. Sleep more.

Getting to sleep, though, can be a proper pain in the arse. When you need it most it evades you, and no amount of imaginary sheep-counting does the trick. In fact, trying to count sheep just turns you against them.

But Andrew Weil, a Harvard-trained medical doctor who focuses on holistic health (basically, he's the sort of guy you want giving you sleeping tips), reckons he has a sure-fire way of getting off to the land of nod in just 60 seconds. It's all about breathing.

The technique is called the 4-7-8 breathing exercise, or the 'Relaxing Breathe', and its designed to promote good sleep.

"Breathing strongly influences physiology and thought processes, including moods," Weil says. "By simply focusing your attention on your breathing and without doing anything to change it, you can move in the direction of relaxation."

It's really simple to do, and can be broken down into four simple steps. It's recommended that you sit with your back straight and place the tip of your tongue against the ridge of tissue just behind your upper front teeth, keeping it there if you can. If this feels weird you can purse your lips instead, kind of like a pout... so also a bit weird. Anyway, here are the steps.

1. Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four.
2. Hold your breath for a count of seven.
3. Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of eight.
4. This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths.

At this point you should be asleep. Still with us? Hello? HELLO.

If you are still with us then it's probably because you haven't quite nailed the technique. Keep trying it until you feel relaxed. It's advised that you practice twice a day for two months to really master it.

The reason this supposedly works is because it helps silence the racket of preoccupying thoughts in your mind, and in the long run can really help with stress.

Topics: Sleep

Mark McGowan

Mark is a journalist at LADbible, who joined in 2015 after a year as a freelance writer. In the past he blogged for independent football fan channel Redmen TV, after graduating from Staffordshire University with degrees in journalism and English literature. He has worked on campaigns such as UOKM8? and IIOC.