The Guide to Mindful Sleep
All of us need sleep as it is a critical component of our overall wellbeing. Did you know that sleep does not just heal our body, but it also heals our mind? A night of good sleep is able to change how we interact with the world by raising our mood and helping us to focus better. However, in the world that we are in, many of us are unable to tap on the healing power of sleep as we are strangled with stress and anxiety. More and more people are suffering from insomnia or struggling to get a good sleep which then leads to sleep deprivation, lack of focus, poor emotional state as well as memory loss.
With that said, there’s a solution which is where mindfulness plays an essential role to help us to sleep better. To learn how to apply mindfulness in your life and your sleep, do continue reading.
“Through mindfulness, it will help us to set the stage for our sleep as it makes us be more aware of our thoughts and learn how to let go of anxieties than having them stuck to us.”
All of us need sleep as it is a critical component of our overall wellbeing. Did you know that sleep does not just heal our body, but it also heals our mind? A night of good sleep is able to change how we interact with the world by raising our mood and helping us to focus better. However, in the world that we are in, many of us are unable to tap on the healing power of sleep as we are strangled with stress and anxiety. More and more people are suffering from insomnia or struggling to get a good sleep which then leads to sleep deprivation, lack of focus, poor emotional state as well as memory loss.
With that said, there’s a solution which is where mindfulness plays an essential role to help us to sleep better. Through mindfulness, it will help us to set the stage for our sleep as it makes us be more aware of our thoughts and learn how to let go of anxieties than having them stuck to us.
Practicing mindfulness daily will help to build and strengthen our “mind-muscle” where it will help us to identify negative insomnia-inducing thoughts and learn how to let them go. Thus, mindfulness meditation is one of the ways that helps prepare our minds to drift off into sleep and it can also improve our sleep quality.
That said, here are THREE mindfulness dos and don’ts for a good sleep.
- Meditate daily – When you maintain a regular daytime mindfulness meditation practice, it will definitely help you to sleep better and longer. However, it is not a remedy but a tool.
- Practice out of bed – If you are unable to fall asleep, you could do mindfulness practice, but don’t do in bed and do it somewhere else. Staying in bed for more than 20 minutes will create an association that being in bed is for other activities as well. Amidst your practice, don’t fall asleep but if you’re feeling drowsy, return to your bed to sleep.
- Don’t force yourself to sleep – If you’re finding it difficult to doze off, try to let go of that struggle. The more you lie on your bed won’t make you fall asleep. However, take notice of your worries about being unable to sleep, your noisy mind, and visualize them floating by. And when you do this more and accept you cannot force sleep, you’d then find yourself sleeping easier eventually.
And in conjunction with World Sleep Day, I’d also like to share with you three ways to wind down for sleep with mindfulness.
- Putting your devices away – To fall asleep, you must eliminate all forms of distractions, and the major distraction would be our devices. So, as you are about to prepare for sleep, put away your devices as the blue light that emits from the screen has an effect on our brains which increases our alertness and reduces the levels of sleep-inducing melatonin.
- Don’t force it – “Fake it until you make it” also applies to sleep. Do you know the pressure to try to fall asleep can have an adverse effect and heighten feelings of stress on us? Thus, by practicing mindfulness as well as embracing the moment, sleep will come naturally.
- Do a body scan meditation – Body scans are effective mindfulness meditations for good sleep. Start to be conscious of the sensations in your body and your breathing. When your attention wanders, try to take note of that and gently centre your thoughts. When we allow ourselves to be in the present, our body will naturally rest.
Credit: Mindful.org
Michael Teh, 11h March 2022.
Michael Teh is a meditation coach devoted to a personal mission of awakening more people to higher consciousness. He teaches self-realization through meditation, qigong, yoga and philosophy.
Michael Teh Signature Workshop: The Essence of Life Series explores meditation as a powerful tool to realize our true potential. Michael has designed multiple workshops in this series to support his participants’ self-realization journey. Workshop Series 1 is currently running every few months on-ground in Kuala Lumpur, titled “Knowledge of The Self and Fundamentals of Meditation”.
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