When you don’t get a full night of sleep, it can take days to start feeling better. Aside from being exhausted, you might feel irritable and struggle to concentrate. It doesn’t take long for insomnia to start affecting your mental health. Did you know there are forms of meditation you can practice to fall asleep when you want to and get the deep, restful sleep you need?
Meditation can help many people relax, but those with clinical insomnia or sleep disorders often need more structured treatment, such as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) or a sleep medicine consultation. It may take a bit of experimentation to find out what type of sleep meditation works best for you. Fortunately, you can get started tonight! Keep reading for more about the mental health benefits of sleep meditation and step-by-step instructions.
How does sleep meditation benefit my mental health?
Using meditations to calm down at bedtime and get to sleep comes with benefits for your mental health and physical health. For one thing, it reduces symptoms of mental health conditions. When you’re feeling rested and alert, you have a better ability to regulate your emotions. It’s easier to choose healthy coping strategies instead of turning to things like drugs or alcohol. When you feel good in your body, your mental health is better, and vice versa.
Sleep meditations can help you achieve these mental health benefits:
- Better overall mood
- Lower stress level
- Greater capacity to appreciate the positive
- Improved ability to handle negative life events
- Improved ability to regulate emotions
- Reduced symptoms of mental health conditions
- Lower risk of unhealthy coping strategies like using drugs or alcohol
- Improved physical health
4 sleep meditations to try
Meditating for better sleep won’t add too many steps to your nightly routine. All you need to do is lie down, close your eyes, and focus your mind on what you’re feeling in your body. Covering yourself in a soft blanket or using a relaxing scented lotion like lavender can help you set the mood. The meditations covered here require little to no movement, and you won’t need any special tools either. For one option, you’ll use your phone or another device to play a video.
Try these four types of sleep meditation to start falling asleep faster and feel the effects of deep, restful sleep:
- Progressive muscle relaxation — This meditation helps you relax your body and mind at the same time. Start with any part of the body you like, from your head to your toes. Tense up the muscles in that area a few times and then relax them. Then move on to the next part. Once you’ve made it through your entire body, do a full-body tense and relax.
- Paired breathing and muscle relaxation — This is a slight variation on the first meditation. As you clench a muscle group, take a deep breath in. Then exhale as you relax them. You might do this with bigger muscle groups like your arms, torso and legs rather than individual body parts. Or try simply raising your arms as you breathe in and lowering them on the exhale.
- Visualization — If your thoughts are keeping you awake, try visualizing a place that feels safe and tranquil. It might be your favorite beach or a grassy spot under a tall tree. Try to see the environment around you and notice any sensations you would feel, like wind or the warmth of the sun. Another calming visualization is to imagine yourself floating in a still body of water.
- Yoga nidra — In Sanskrit, yoga nidra means “yogic sleep.” It’s a type of meditation that doesn’t require any movement. You can find videos of guided yoga nidra meditations on YouTube. Grab your headphones or set your phone close to your bed so you can hear the prompts clearly, but not too loud. Many of the recordings are over an hour long, and by the time it’s over, you might drift off to sleep. Just make sure your app isn’t set to start up the next video in your queue.
Sleep meditation is a simple and high-impact practice you can add to your self-care routine. It’s very beginner friendly, but the more you do it, the more effective it will be. That’s why it’s called a practice. Which one will you try first?
At Lightfully U, we encourage our clients to reflect on four core life processes and develop their own unique self-care habits. These processes are thoughts, emotions, behaviors and relationships. Mindfulness practices are one tool that has benefits in all four areas.
Do you have a mental health condition that affects your sleep or your ability to maintain a self-care routine? Let’s talk about it. Please contact us and ask about an assessment.
