Simple Meditations to Promote Sleep by Sarah Johnson

Here's How to Use Mindfulness Meditation to Sleep
Better Sleep is essential for health and wellbeing. When you don't sleep enough, you feel stressed. Stress can also make it difficult for you to sleep. When you're stressed, you may find it hard to relax at night. You may stay awake with anxious thoughts, or wake up in the middle of the night feeling stress or worry.

With sleep deprivation, stress only gets worse. You show more signs of stress and your body and mind struggle to recover from the stress of the day. With mindfulness meditation, you can relieve the effects of stress and get better, more restorative sleep.

Why You Can't Sleep When You're Feeling Stressed
Stress stimulates your mind and body, which is the opposite of the relaxation you need to calm down and drift off to sleep. When you're feeling stressed, your mind and body are in a state of hyperarousal, and higher levels of stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline are released, while production of serotonin, a hormone that helps you feel tired, is reduced. You may feel agitated, find it difficult to control your thoughts, and experience anxiety, all of which can make it hard to sleep soundly.

How Meditation Can Help You Sleep Better
Meditation can be used to trigger the relaxation response. When you trigger the relaxation response, your mind and body feel calmer. It can counteract the effect of stress on your body, reduce psychological distress, decrease oxygen consumption, and reduce blood pressure. The relaxation response can also be used to mitigate the effects of insomnia.

You can support healthy sleep habits with meditation, using it as a calming practice during the day or before bed. Practiced regularly, mindfulness meditation can help to improve sleep quality while reducing insomnia, fatigue, and depression.
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Using Meditation to Sleep Well and Relieve Stress
Mindfulness meditation can be used to promote relaxation and healthy sleep. It should be practiced regularly, but meditation is particularly helpful when you're feeling especially stressed or sleep deprived.

• Use meditation to fall asleep at night. A healthy bedtime routine can help you fall asleep easier when practiced consistently. Going through the same steps each night signals to your brain and body that bedtime is coming, and it's time to start feeling sleepy. Making meditation part of your bedtime routine can help you relax and wind down even further, and you may fall asleep while meditating. Try counting meditation, also known as the classic sheep counting method of falling asleep. Count upwards to 100 or more until you fall asleep. Focus simply on counting, gently pushing away any other thoughts that introduce themselves.
• Relieve tension with progressive muscle relaxation. If you're feeling particularly tense, you can use progressive muscle relaxation to work the stress out of your muscles while you're lying in bed. You'll lay down on a comfortable mattress, then tense and relax muscle groups one at a time. Contract each muscle group for five seconds as you inhale, then relax for 30 seconds as you exhale, repeating as many times as needed to effectively relieve tension.
• Banish stressful thoughts with mindful breathing. Mindful breathing meditation, particularly the 4-7-8 mindful breathing method, can be like a tranquilizer for your mind and body, offering immediate relief for stress that can interfere with sleep. Bring your focus to breathing and how your breath feels as it moves through your body. Inhale for a four count, hold it for a count of seven, and then exhale for a count of eight, repeating until you feel more relaxed. This can be practiced before bed, or if you wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep. (Watch a 7-minute video here guiding you through Alternate Nostril Breathing,   a balancing breath work that deeply relaxes the nervous system.)

About the Author
Sarah Johnson represents Community Relations for Tuck Sleep, a non-commercial community devoted to improving sleep hygiene, health and wellness through the creation and dissemination of comprehensive, unbiased, free web-based resources. Tuck has been featured on NBC News, Lifehacker, and Radiolab and is referenced by many colleges/universities and sleep organizations across the web.