meditation to help sleep?

jollylee

Hi folks,

I have a friend that is having difficulty sleeping at the moment. She says there's nothing wrong and that she doesn't have anything on her mind. I've a feeling her insomnia could be caused by anxiety due to her fast approaching leaving cert. She's not Buddhist nor am I so I'm not sure if I'm asking in the right forum but any help is very welcome.

I have fallen asleep listening to motivational meditations before and was hoping to find something that might help her.

Has anyone got any meditation audio that might help her clear her head when she goes to bed. Thanks for any replies in advance.

KamikazeKenny81

Well the good news is meditation isnt just for buddhists, I would recommend it to anyone and everyone, especially if suffering from stress or anxiety. There are many ways to meditate, including that found in yoga, tai chi (spelling), or as you mentioned audio methods, to simple sitting meditation.

I dont have any audio links for you im afraid but I would recommend looking on youtube. Ive found many nice simple meditations on there by simply searching for "meditation walkthrough". There are lots of different types on youtube, which would make it easy for your friend to search through and find something that feels right for them. As little as 10 minutes per evening could really help them unwind if they are anything like me. If nothing there suits, perhaps yoga or some other form of mobile meditation may help?

YFlyer

There are 'night techniques' that one can practice that increases one's ability to experience 'pure awareness' or 'witness' during sleeping.

Dagon

A great way to help one sleep and relax is to focus all attention on the palms of the hands, or the soles of the feet. Feel the sensations in those areas, and let the mind relax. All thoughts will gradually quieten as you focus on the feet/hands, and you may feel subtle tingling sensations as you gradually fall asleep.

bou

If you want to get sound sleep, you probably don't want to be trying out "night meditation" or "dream yoga". As a beginner with this, I found it disturbed my sleep a good bit since in it you are trying to practice mindfulness as you fall asleep and hopefully continue that mindfulness during sleep. Probably, as you get more used to it, you can sleep well and bring mindfulness/awareness at the same time.

I tend in recent years to sleep more lightly and find that if I am worrying or anxious about something I'll wake in the middle of the night mulling ideas over and trying to work things out. This happens more when I practice meditation less. Its a kind of discontented frame of mind that is probably going on during the day and carries over into disturbed sleep at night.

At the time, in the middle of the night, it can seem so important to work out whatever the problem/idea is and I may even come up with some solutions, but next day it usually turns out to have been a waste of time and of a good night's sleep.

I think agitation, discontent, anxiety and fear are the big problems with loosing sleep. As it happens, these are also the things that meditation is good for curing.

Advice for better sleep? I like the advice from Dagon about focusing on body sensations.

Other ideas: Try to do your best to live the day well, acting in a good way, doing the best you can in what ever activity you engage in. Relax for a while in the evening before bed. This could be meditation, a walk or enjoying some simple activity. Before going to bed, look at the day and see how well you did. Be satisfied and happy with what went well. Decide that tomorrow you'll try to improve what didn't go so well. Decide that for now, there is nothing more to worry about today. Decide to put it all aside and make a firm intention not to worry or think about problems during the night. Develop a kind of contentment with how you are and that you are basically ok. The fact that you are alive is enough. Decide that whatever concerns there are can wait till tomorrow.

When feeling a little disturbed and having difficulty falling asleep, I sometimes imagine I'm relaxing in an enjoyable scenic place, maybe in a meadow, a hillside, by a lake, enjoying a warm breeze. Relaxing into it is better than making effort to try hard to imagine the scene. You could alternatively try taking a number of deep slow breaths, letting them out slowly and fully, and counting them to e.g. 7 or 21, and relaxing on each one.

When I wake up thinking about stuff, it helps to say to myself with humour, "there I go again getting caught in useless busy thinking", decide to just drop it completely and relax.

I sometimes visualize the Buddha or a Master sitting in deep tranquil meditation and/or say mantras.

The practice of mediation is a very good way to find contentment and let go of worries.