If your mind can't relax enough in the evening, it's hard to fall asleep. The many thoughts of the day develop into a small whirlwind in your head and leave you no peace. There are wonderfully calming meditation exercises that can help you fall asleep. Learn more here.
Finding natural peace with meditation
Problems falling asleep wear on your nerves. Maybe you know this: while you just can't turn off your thoughts and at the same time you're tormented by worries about not getting enough sleep, it's just incredibly difficult to relax properly. Under these circumstances, many people resort to sleeping pills to find their peace.
But you don't have to resort to medication to find harmony: try meditation exercises instead! This way, you'll naturally give your body exactly what it needs to drift off to sleep. A study by the University of Minnesota confirms the high effectiveness of meditation and mindfulness training. Eight weeks of this is therefore just as helpful for insomnia as swallowing sleeping pills for eight weeks!
So you see: you already have the ability to improve your sleep quality within you - you just need to activate it.
What monkeys have to do with falling asleep
Yoga appropriately compares our mind to a monkey that screeches loudly and jumps from tree to tree . A funny image - but at some point we should let our monkey settle down a bit, otherwise it will steal our last nerve. But while we try to move away from our inner monkey circus, we only give the thoughts more energy. The solution: distract the monkey!
3 great meditation exercises for falling asleep
The most important thing with these meditation exercises is that you shift your concentration to something other than falling asleep . In the following meditation exercises for falling asleep, we will show you how exactly you can do that:
Exercise 1: Find a meditation object
Instead of being preoccupied with hundreds of thoughts as you fall asleep, try to find a meditation object that you can fully engage with:
Feel your breathing, the air flow at the nostrils, or the lifting and lowering of your abdominal wall. Count the breaths to about 10 and then start again from the beginning.
That would already be a first, helpful meditation exercise, for example.
It may sound simple at first, but it requires a high degree of concentration - and in just the right place to take the energy away from sleep-robbing thoughts - and thus tame your inner monkey.
Exercise 2: Watching an inner film
Another method would be this - take at least 10 minutes to do it:
- Sit upright but comfortable in your bed.
- Review the events of the day from back to front. Starting from this moment, continue to your way to bed and so on.
- You do not have to be detailed, but simply recall the moments that come to you of their own accord. Experience them one more time.
- It is important to look at it from the outside: do you see your day in front of you as if someone else had experienced it and as if you were only an uninvolved spectator? So if you have experienced an insult on this day, then take distance from it now. It is your figure that you see there in the past, but it no longer exists. You are just here now, apart from all this.
- Now you can just sit quietly and experience who you actually are - apart from the experiences of this day - just yourself.
- You can fall asleep quietly while doing this.
At first this meditation technique can be a bit difficult, but after time it can serve you as a powerful calming technique. Thinking backwards releases the tension in your mind, and being untouched by daily events shows you who you really are . So there is no reason against the necessary sleep relaxation.
Exercise 3: A mantra for mindfulness
Many people find it easier to relax with a mantra. Inhale the word "calm" and exhale the word "relaxation". Repeat this for at least 10 minutes in relaxed silence.
Even if your monkey intervenes from time to time and throws other thoughts in between, don't be angry with him - take note of the thought briefly, greet him friendly and say goodbye to him again right away. Then you can direct your attention again to your mantra: rest, relaxation, rest, relaxation....
If you like other terms more, you can of course use other words as well. The important thing is that you relax all around!
Meditation to fall asleep: A final tip
The balance of the body elements is also a central component of European Ayurveda®. Diseases as well as disorders, such as sleep problems, are always symptoms of an imbalance within us. By giving balance to body, mind and soul, we can specifically find new regeneration, energy and joy. Bring a little Ayurveda as a great sleep cure into your life!
Conclusion
Meditation exercises can help you relax your mind naturally. Whether you place a meditation object in front of your thoughts, mentally relive your day backwards from the outside, or adopt a calming mantra, it's up to you. Take distance from problems and worries with meditation: we wish you a restful sleep!
