Obsessive thoughts and experiences cannot be stopped or turned off after a difficult emotional day, at least for a while. They do not give complete relaxation and cleansing of experienced negative emotions, provoke long falling asleep and frequent night awakenings.
The brain, and the body as a whole, are in constant tension, which makes them even more tired. To forget about worries, it is recommended to use a well-known and, most importantly, effective form of relaxation and blocking the flow of negative thoughts – meditation before bedtime.
Why Meditate Before Sleep
A healthy body is a result of good sleep. Systematic lack of sleep leads to frequent illnesses and gives rise to depression and inexplicable irascibility. You can learn to protect your mind and thoughts from negativity and quickly fall asleep with the help of meditation. A proper technique will help you cope with stress, defeat insomnia, and even teach you how to control your dreams.
For one session of relaxation, you need only 10-15 minutes. As a final result, evening meditation aims to restore vital energy, helping eliminate constant anxiety. A person in the morning feels cheerful and energized.
There are many different types: specially created methods for men, women, children, and general practices. Each technique is developed taking into account the body’s characteristics, which helps achieve the maximum effect of sound sleep.
Technique for women
The key to a successful process is strict adherence to the stages of the chosen methodology.
Training
In the prone position, you should sit as comfortably as possible and adjust your breathing. To do this, take a few smooth deep breaths and exhalations. When inhaling, use your mouth and nose simultaneously, feeling how the air fills your chest. Exhale with the feeling that all the accumulated negativity leaves the body with the air.
Status check
Slowly analyze your feelings and consciousness, and determine the streams of thoughts. Do not resist the results; try to relax.
Body feeling
Focus on your body, determine the points of contact with the bed, and feel the weight and its even distribution over the mattress. If extraneous noises, feelings, or experiences interfere with concentration, it is necessary to stop focusing on the object distracting and then continue briefly.
Body scan
Determine the body’s weight (heavy or light) and state (calm, tense, motionless, mobile). From the feet, visually scan yourself, stopping at places where tension is concentrated. Give them attention. If everything is done correctly, the fettered spots will disappear. Repeat the procedure until the whole body is relaxed.
Breath
Attention should be paid to breathing and observing how it is (deep, long, calm). At the same time, do not intentionally change its frequency; the body will regulate the process. After 1–2 min. The brain will automatically turn off. Realizing that the mental flow has stopped, it will become clear that the brain has regained its activity. Give the stage 2-3 minutes. And move on.
Viewing the day’s events
Fast forward to the start of the day. Event review starts from the moment you wake up. Then you should return to meetings, scrolling through critical dialogues in memory. The mind is arranged so that a person will observe the smooth acceleration of the past day. The entire procedure won’t go over 3 minutes.
Don’t get hung up on specific points; let the flow go as a carousel of images. The stop will be the present state. This stage helps increase the productivity of the following days and develop a good sense of reality.
Going to sleep
Direct all attention to the little toe of the left foot; imagine how he falls asleep. Do the same with all fingers, gradually moving up. Similarly, “turn off” the right leg. In the process, it is essential to feel the difference between the sleeping and non-sleeping area. Continue to put everything to sleep:
- torso,
- fingers,
- neck
- head.
Sleep begins while you enjoy total relaxation, during which your thoughts and experiences gradually recede into the background.
Meditation “Healing sleep.”
This sleep meditation technique is used to help the body get the most healthy rest for a night’s sleep. Before meditating, you must lie on your back, put your head on a small, flat pillow, place your arms along the torso, and keep your legs straight. We mentally release each muscle from tension and experience a feeling of lightness and weightlessness.
After that, you need to move on to breathing. Imagine how with each subsequent breath, the body fills with energy, light, and heat (choose what is closer). It becomes more and more. It would help if you breathed calmly, measuredly, gradually plunging into a deep sleep. Meditation for deep sleep invigorates and promotes well-being throughout the day.
For kids
Experts most often recommend using the breathing technique of meditation. Many consider it the best, relatively easy, and understandable to the child. With the help of breathing exercises, children learn to control emotions better, drive away evil thoughts, and focus their attention in the right direction.
The technique begins with a five-second inhalation and a smooth exhalation. At this moment, the child should feel how measured breathing can slow down the train of thought, calm and relax. In the meditation process, the body becomes weightless and ready to fall asleep.
For total relaxation and cleansing
Meditation for insomnia is aimed at freeing and clearing the mind of negativity and useless thoughts. It is completed in two steps.
- The first step is to free the mind from obsessive experiences. Imagine how light energy fills the body with inhalation, and all the accumulated dark thoughts go away with exhalation. The space is occupied by new streams of positive energy, which are evenly spread throughout the body in the form of heat.
- The second stage divides thoughts into “useful” and “useless.” All positive reviews are visually laid out on the shelves for later use, after which you should enjoy the silence from the established order. At will, “useful” memories are reviewed, but only those that will help you fall asleep.
“Boat”
The primary function of the Boat Meditation Technique is appeasement. It is desirable to spend it at the end of the day, located near fresh air. It can be a balcony, an open window, or a cozy veranda. It would be best if you took a comfortable position (preferably lying down), closed your eyes, and imagined yourself in a slowly sailing boat. The minor details matter here.
The time of day (sunrise or sunset) is presented, perhaps a light fog, the beautiful coastal landscapes. You can enjoy the light rustle of leaves, the sound of water, and birds singing. After 5–10 min. The body will ultimately surrender to relaxation, and meditation will reach its peak. You should return to your normal state slowly, smoothly, gradually.
Mental teleportation
Everyone has a place where he feels completely safe. For some, this is a parental home, an old village, a river bank, a green lawn, and a desert island at sunset. It could be a place from memory or a favorite fantasy. The teleportation technique aims to move virtually to one’s “safe place.”
A significant part of people who practice relaxation considers this type of relaxation to be the best meditation before going to bed.
A location is devoid of negativity, concerns, and issues. Realism is essential in meditation. Therefore, being in the process of relaxation, it is important to feel every little thing around you: the smell of rain, freshly cut grass, the breath of a warm summer wind, the heat from a fire. Music, recordings of wildlife sounds, and audio with a voice will help to give an even more significant effect.
Mental transformation
A relatively complex type of meditation is not suitable for everyone and is rarely used. Its essence is a mental transformation into a living being, object, natural phenomenon, or abstraction. Applying the chosen image to yourself is not easy. Still, if you persevere and practice the transformation slowly, you can achieve good results with all the sensations that the object experiences.
Only the proper meditation can lead to success, help to cope with existing problems, defeat insomnia, anxiety, and nightmares, and establish healthy sleep.
Meditation does not require money to heal, but such activities should be treated as a healing process with full responsibility. The chosen technique can help but can also aggravate the situation and lead to undesirable consequences.
