For those with insomnia, "turning off" the brain before sleep can be quite a challenge. The good news is that sleep meditation can help solve this issue.
What is Sleep Meditation?
Sleep meditation is a practice to improve sleep quality through various meditation techniques. In essence we’re asking "What is meditation?"
Over thousands of years, many definitions about meditation have been offered, with one of the closest to perfect being: meditation is conscious sleep.
Typically, most people oscillate between being awake and asleep daily. However, there's a third state in between: meditation. This state involves the body entering a state of sleep while consciousness remains active. Achieving this is the goal of meditation and its very essence.
We even can say: meditation is sleeping, but consciously. Understanding this makes the various peculiar sensations experience during meditation more comprehensible. These changes happen every night; we just don't notice them because we lose consciousness when we fall asleep.
How to Do Sleep Meditation?
Meditation practice is quite simple.
Here’re some basic steps:
(1) Find a quiet place to sit or lie down comfortably.
(2) Close your eyes and breathe slowly, focusing your attention on your breath
(3) If you find your mind wandering, that's okay. Just gently bring your focus back to your breath
Though these steps seem simple, You’ll find focusing even a minute on your breath can be challenging as the mind races with various thoughts, making it hard to keep your attention steady.
At the beginning, you might only manage to focus for 3-5 minutes, but with more sleep meditation practice, you can gradually increase to 15-20 minutes.
Some Other Popular Meditation Methods
1. Mindfulness Meditation
Mindfulness meditation focuses your attention on the present, enhancing awareness of your body, thoughts, and emotions.
Once you are aware of a thought or emotion, just observe it without interfering, allowing it to pass like clouds in the sky.
Steps for Mindfulness Meditation:
(1) Find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed
(2) Focus your attention on your thoughts, emotions, or a specific part of your body. Remember, focus on one thing at a time.
(3) Simply observe these items. You don’t need to avoid or respond to them. You are just an observer.
(4) If you feel any pain or itchiness, just observe these sensations without taking action
(5) If you find your mind drifting, simply bring your attention back to your current focus
2. Guided Meditation
In guided meditation, there’s someone leading you through the steps. They may guide you on how to breathe or relax your body, or have you visualize images or sounds.
How to do a guided meditation?
(1) Find a quiet space where you won't be disturbed
(2) Choose a guided meditation audio
(3) Focus on the audio and follow the guidance
(4) If your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back to the sound of audio
3. Body Scan
Body scan is a core practice in mindfulness therapy, the body scan meditation focuses your attention on different parts of your body.
Steps of body scan:
(1) Start by finding a quiet place to sit or lay down
(2) Close your eyes, breathe slowly, and feel the contact between your body and the ground or chair.
(3) Begin from the top of your head, noticing any sensations, cold, hot, painful or tense, try to relax it.
(4) Continue down your body, moving from eyes, jaw,to your arms and fingers. Continue to your stomach, back, hips, legs, and feet. Notice how each part feels.
(5) If your mind wander, just gently bring your attention to the part of body.
(6) You can repeat in the opposite direction, from your feet to your head.
Final Thought
You might have noticed all these meditation methods(basic meditation, mindfulness meditation, guided meditation and body scan) involve keeping the body still while focusing the mind on something specific.
Thus, the idea that "Meditation is consciously sleeping" seems quite right, doesn't it?
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