Effectiveness of breathing exercises compared to audio signals to improve sleep

Objective. To compare the effectiveness of three non-pharmacological interventions — binaural beats (BB) combined with suggestive instructions (SI), diaphragmatic breathing (DB), and BB combined with DB — for improving sleep, with consideration of sex differences among participants. Material and methods. The study included 217 healthy participants. Each participant completed four tasks in randomized order on separate nights before bedtime: (1) BB+SI, (2) DB, (3) BB+DB, and (4) monotonous sound without beats as a control (imitation, IM). Sleep latency (SL) was measured using a smartphone screen-touch test. Statistical analyses of SL values were conducted by task and sex factors. Results. Analysis revealed a statistically significant effect of the task factor on sleep latency (SL) (p<0.05). Post-hoc comparisons showed that the DB task significantly reduced mean SL compared to IM for the overall group (p<0.05). Additionally, a significant decrease in mean SL following the BB+SI intervention was observed in females compared to IM (p<0.05). No statistically significant changes were found in males. Conclusions. The findings confirm the effectiveness of deep diaphragmatic breathing (DB) and suggestive instructions (SI) combined with binaural beats (BB) as non-pharmacological interventions for improving sleep in a large sample. The SI combined with BB demonstrated efficacy exclusively in females.