Getting back to sleep with the help of meditation and NLP

I've read bits and pieces about NLP - Neuro Linguistic Programming - though I'm not a great believer, I can see the usefulness and merit behind most of the techniques.
Tonight I had a great experience on how they can work!
I woke up at 4am. I arrived late yesterday from a long weekend away, and I guess I was still a bit revved up from the flight and a bit anxious from going back to work.
I did the usual stuff I do to get me back to sleep: ate some cookies, then read for a bit... but to no avail. In fact, I was getting more anxious, as I knew I had a lot of work to cover the following day.
Then I tried something: I forced myself to take deep long breaths. I wanted to take at least 6 in a row. It wasn't easy (!), sometimes I got to 2 or 3 and my mind wandered to one of my problems! But as I was patient and eventually managed to calm the breathing, slowly I noticed parts of my body releasing tension. One of my hands had a really tight grip that started to loosen up... and so on. Simultaneously my mind started to get a lot calmer and rested. In a few minutes, I was getting back to sleep!
It's a great learning! Basically it takes a bit from meditation, the deep breathing to refocus and quieten the mind; and also a bit from NLP.
One of the most popular techniques of NLP is the act as if. For example, if you want to be more confident, act as if you are confident. Stand up straight, look people in the eyes, and so on. And then you will start to feel more confident.

In this case, though my mind was overactive, I started breathing as if I was calm... and the mind soon followed!