Sleep takes you away into a realm of dreams, into a space and time beyond measure. When you fall asleep, your body gets rid of what it has accumulated throughout the day. In turn, you always wake up fresh and full of energy. However, there are many things that affect your sleep cycles and don’t allow you to have complete rest. Whatever the case may be, you can always practice mindfulness meditation for sleep to reboot your disturbed sleep cycles.

Before you go any further, you need to be aware of what exactly mindfulness meditation for sleep is, so that, you can have a better insight into the matter.

What Is Mindfulness Meditation For Sleep?

To have a better understanding, let’s break the term into a smaller portion. Mindfulness or being mindful denotes that you are aware of your present situation. It further means that you are in conscious control of your mind and body. Therefore, you are no longer lost in worries related to the past or future.

Meditation means sitting in a single space and focus on any single element of your mind or body. There are countless forms of meditation that you can explore to find the best that perfectly suits you. You can either focus on the breath or can take different parts of your being into consideration when you practice meditation.

Thus, when you combine all the aspects, you come across mindfulness meditation for sleep. To further clarify it, you go to sleep but in a conscious state while practicing mindfulness meditation for sleep. It is like hanging between a state of sleepiness and wakefulness.

Types Of Meditations To Do For Overall Well-Being

There are thousands of meditation practices that you can practice on a regular basis. However, some of them are reserved for expert yoga practitioners. But still, there are countless other available that anyone can do. Mindfulness meditation for sleep is one of them that directly targets your sleeping disorders.

Vipassana Meditation

The very basic meditation that can be practiced by anyone comes under the scope of Vipassana meditation. When you practice it, all you have to be aware of is your breath. You need to keep a constant eye on your inhale and exhale of breath.

Chakra Meditation

There are chakras, also known as energy centers in your body. When you practice chakra meditation, you bring your attention to one of the available chakra points. The nature or scope of your meditation solely depends on which chakra you are focusing on.

Heartfull Meditation

When you practice heartful meditation, all your focus is on your heart. There have been various steps involved in this. Moreover, it is more of a cleansing meditation, that might or might not require another person to help you.

Mindfulness Meditation for Sleep

This form of meditation is practiced to work on your sleep cycles. In layman language, to practice mindfulness meditation for sleep, you need to be aware while falling asleep. Just keep a check that you don’t fall asleep rather be in a state of wakefulness.

Focused Meditation

Cleared from the name itself, when you practice focused meditation, you bring your attention to a single point. It could be your on your body or something in your surrounding. It improves your overall sense of focus.

Various Sleep Disorders: Causes And Symptoms

More than 70 million people in the US are suffering from sleep disorders. The common cause of having sleepless nights is stress. However, other factors also equally participate in making a person suffer from any sleeping issues.

Causes

Physical Pain
Mental Tension
Psychological Complications
Health Ailments
Sudden Change In Life
Anxiety
Work Load
Over-Thinking

Sleep Disorders

A few of many sleep issues are as mentioned below. Have a quick reading.

Insomnia

The most common and widespread sleep issue that every third person suffers from is insomnia. People who suffer from insomnia find it really hard or nearly impossible to fall asleep. There are many symptoms that signify that a person is suffering from insomnia. A few could be facing difficulty falling asleep or not sleeping at all.

When you are sleeping and your sleep breaks, it signifies that you have bouts of insomnia now and then. Moreover, when you wake up too early could be a sign of insomnia. Whatever might be the reason, you can practice mindfulness meditation for sleep to heal your internal mechanisms.

Sleep Apnea

A person suffering from sleep apnea finds it difficult to breathe. Whenever he or she is sleeping, there is a moment that the breathing is interrupted, resulting in breaking the sleep. Two types of sleep apnea exist there, Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and Central Sleep Apnea (CSA).

When you practice mindfulness meditation for sleep, you never go fully unconscious while sleeping or till the time you are meditating. Thus, you teach your body to be conscious and to keep all the hurdles or issues at bay. In turn, you can sleep better without worrying about getting distracted or interrupted regularly by various elements inside your body.

Restless Legs Syndrome

A person suffering from restless legs syndrome has the urge to move the legs instead of letting them rest. The more your body keeps moving or shifting, the difficult it gets for you to have a good night’s sleep.

Therefore, practicing mindfulness meditation for sleep allows you to take conscious control of your body. Since you are not fully asleep, your unconscious cannot interfere with your work. Therefore, you can enjoy a sound sleep without waking now and then.

Narcolepsy

It is a neurological disorder in which a person suffers from bouts of sleepiness. Sometimes, when the case goes to the extreme end, the person can fall asleep anytime and anywhere, making it highly dangerous in many cases.

Practicing mindfulness meditation for sleep improves your control over sleep timing, or to some extent, you become aware of when you might get a sudden urge to sleep. It helps you get prepared beforehand, so that, you deliberately position yourself in a safe space.

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Mindfulness Meditation For Sleep Exercises

There is always a process when you seek to walk a path that you have never been to. Similarly, when you want to dive deeper into the world of dreams, you need to make sure that your mind and body are in perfect sync to follow the suit. For that, you need to practice various mindfulness meditation for sleep exercises that enhance your motor-neuron control for better mindfulness meditation for sleep experience.

The following are a few of the best exercises of mindfulness meditation for sleep that you can incorporate into your routine for the overall enhancement of your being. Keep reading.

• Mindful Breathing

You might have witnessed that when you are deeply engrossed in any activity, you remember every minute detail related to that particular activity. It signifies that your mind is a powerful machine that has a laser-like focus.

When you practice mindful breathing, you bring your attention to your breath. All you have to do is to be aware of when it is coming out and when you are breathing in. You have to force nothing, neither you have to change the natural flow of your breath. Rather, be aware of the inhale and exhale of your breath. At first, you might find it is hard to concentrate. However, over time you gain sharp focus and an increased attention span.

• Mindful Seeing

There is a difference between when you are looking at something and when you are seeing something. When you look at something, you just pass your gaze in a wider ratio without taking much detail into consideration. However, when you see something, you bring your focus on it, without letting your attention flicker elsewhere even for a moment.

When you practice mindfully seeing exercise while doing mindfulness meditation for sleep, you simply fix your gaze at something that keeps attracting your attention. When you focus on a particular thing, you get so engulfed in it that it lowers your mental activity. In turn, you become calm and your mind gets the much-needed rest.

• Mindful Listening

Do you remember that amid a noisy place, if you hear a tiny piece of music, your attention automatically diverts to it? That is what it means to listen or to hear. Just when you start concentrating on the musical note you come across while standing in a noisy location, other sounds seem to get distant from you.

Therefore, when you listen mindfully to something that has soothing effects on your mind, or to something that grabs your attention, you notice a sudden shift in your consciousness. While practicing this exercise for mindfulness meditation for sleep, you become aware of an outward source that helps you to calm your mind.

• The Body Scan

It is the most common exercise of mindfulness meditation for sleep. The body scan exercise is used to harness your attention from the different dimensions of your mind, and you are made to focus on your body.

When you practice the body scan, you can either start from your toes or your head. But the main aim is to relax different parts of your body. Different parts of your body retain tension and stress in your body differently. Thus, you need to consciously relax them by focusing on them for some time.

• The Raisin Effect

It is a perfect exercise for mindfulness meditation for sleep for beginners. The practitioner is asked to pretend as if he or she has never seen a raisin. Attention is paid to it by being aware of the way it feels against your skin, or it smells or tastes.

Therefore, it brings all your senses to work and pulls you out of your mental chatter. The sole purpose of the raisin exercise is to bring the attention of the participant to the moment at hand.

How To Practice Mindfulness Meditation For Sleep?

To practice mindfulness meditation for sleep, you need to take a few things into consideration, so that, you have an amazing yoga experience. Follow the below-given steps to practice mindfulness meditation for sleep to have better sleep.

1. Find A Comfortable Place

To start mindfulness meditation for sleep, you need to look for a comfortable place. Usually, a place where you can lie down is preferred. However, there is no hard and fast rule that you need to lie.

Moreover, it is preferred that you chose a cool and darkroom. It enables you to focus much better on yourself rather than losing yourself to outside noise or distractions. Once you are settled down, let your body fall naturally under the spell of gravity.

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2. Relax Your Mind & Body

Mindfulness meditation for sleep incorporates deep relaxation exercises into your routine. Being aware of your body makes you conscious of which part of your body needs attention. Thus, when you bring your attention to stiff or tensed body parts, you are able to deliberately relax them.

Instilling stillness in your body benefits your mind to cut its control over your conscious body. In turn, you can go much deeper into your mind to observe your unconscious acts. Thus, you are able to attain the maximum possible relaxed mind and body.

3. Focus Within

You might have heard it many times that your energy flows where you take your attention or focus. When you are engulfed in daily activities, you never get the time to fully concentrate on things that are important to you.

However, when you practice mindfulness meditation for sleep, you learn to bring your attention either to your body or visualize a scenario. No matter which technique of focus you use, all that matters is to bring your attention to where you can be aware of it.

4. Set An Intention

Setting an intention means that you visualize various things that you need to manifest in your life. Also, you set an intention that consists of the physical dimension, that is, relating to your body, or you can imagine a mental construct.

The aim is to formulate a conscious reality that enables your attention to pass from negative elements to the positive ones. Thus, practicing mindfulness meditation for sleep helps you to bring positive elements into your life by flushing out the negative ones.

5. Let Go

If you are one of those who keep grudges against people who did you wrong, then you are wasting a huge chunk of your precious energy on restricting yourself. Mindfulness meditation for sleep teaches you the art of letting go.

It enables you to let go of your past, so that, you never remain indulged in memories. Letting go also makes space within you for something new. Thus, develop new skills, relations, talents, and much more once you learn to move on.

Why practice Mindfulness Meditation For Sleep?

Releases Stress & Anxiety

From children to adults, everyone experiences stress in different ways and in varying degrees. Similarly, everyone’s sleep gets affected now and then when exposed to feelings of stress and anxiety. Moreover, many of the health issues that people suffer are a result of feeling pressure or stress.

However, when you practice mindfulness meditation for sleep and anxiety, you teach your mind and body to walk towards calmness and peace. You learn ways and techniques to flush out stress from your life permanently.

Relaxes Mind

Your mind is always rushing in every direction, making it nearly impossible to tame it. In turn, you always find yourself getting entangled in countless, meaningless things that don’t serve you any purpose. Thus, you are not able to concentrate on the most important things in your life.

When you practice mindfulness meditation for sleep, your consciously relax your mind and body to the extreme. It helps you by releasing tension in-built in your body.

Makes You Conscious

Being conscious means being aware of all elements being used at the present moment. Mindfulness meditation for sleep hooks you in a space between falling asleep and waking up. Thus, you get a taste of sleeping while being fully awake.

It provides you a way to see how your mind or body reacts to different situations. Moreover, when different thoughts come and go, you can witness various changes in your mental and physical dimensions.

Self Realization

Having an insight into your past actions can provide you a hint of what was wrong or right. However, you can witness that you are always occupied with other ideas or concepts. Therefore, you never get time for yourself.

When you practice mindfulness meditation for sleep, you dive deeper into your unconscious. Thus, it surfaces your hidden desires, so that, you can mend things that are not going with your persona. The realization also helps you to flush your negative emotions from your psyche.

Boosts Energy

You waste a lot of energy every time you indulge in the unwanted or unnecessary transaction of thoughts or verbal comments. In turn, your energy levels decrease and leave you at bay. Since you feel tired and lethargic, you also feel incapable to focus on various elements that require amendments.

Practicing mindfulness meditation for sleep refill your energy cycles, so that, you can have more energy to spare on various activities in your life. Moreover, you come closer to the spiritual realm because your soul is pure energy in itself.

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Improves Sleep Quality

With the removal of everything unwanted, you become a lighter being. Sleep is always affected by the way you absorb things, or by the way your psyche behaves to particular circumstances. Mindfulness meditation for sleep restores your sleep cycles back to normal.

Moreover, you are able to fall asleep in the least possible time. Also, you need lesser time to fall asleep and get into the world of dreams. It results in the overall enhancement of your sleep quality, so that, you can always wake up feeling fresh and energetic.

EndNote

Mindfulness meditation for sleep moves you into a state of pure bliss. Once you make it a regular practice, you experience a calm and composed mental state. Moreover, you become stress-free and learn to embrace each moment to the fullest.

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