Getting enough good quality sleep is crucial for longevity, productivity and even happiness, but it’s not so easy for everyone to achieve. If your anxiety creeps in as you lie in bed trying to get to sleep, it can be especially challenging. Meditation can be helpful to calm your racing mind and prepare your body for sleep and one expert is sharing a quick, three-step way to do it.
Mediation instructor Jeff Warren recently led an eight-minute meditation for sleep on the podcast “Ten Percent Happier With Dan Harris.” Warren explains, “The body knows how to fall asleep, but sometimes the mind gets in the way.” He says this three-step meditation can have you asleep in less than 10 minutes.
- Start with an easy-going attitude - Try to be as relaxed as you can when you get in bed. Warren says skepticism can prevent the meditation from working, noting, “The more uptight you are, the harder this is going to be.”
- Pretend that you’re falling asleep - that includes mimicking the way people breathe when they’re sleeping, with an even rhythm in and out. The meditation expert says you can even think about what you’d do to trick someone into thinking you’re asleep and do those things.
- Follow the body down into sleep - At this point, if you have images popping into your head, Warren suggests not thinking about them too much and just “let them take you where they take you.” During this third step, he says it’s important to “let yourself drift, and your attention and your mind drifts with you.” To actually fall asleep, he encourages you to not resist the body and the mind, but to “completely surrender to the process.”
Source: CNBC
Photo: Getty Images