What is Sleep Meditation and How Can It Help You Sleep Better?

Sleep meditation is a practice or technique that produces a state of deep relaxation while awake and alert. It is a method to help you let go of worrying thoughts and relax your body before bedtime. Like other forms of meditation, this practice involves moving the focus away from thoughts to sensations in the body. Many problems related to sleep begin with thought processes at night.

Sleep meditation can be as simple as inhaling while counting to four and exhaling while counting to four, also known as four-by-four breathing or box breathing. It is a quick and effective meditation practice that you can practice anywhere, anytime. Sleep meditation is done as part of a sleep routine. It can help reduce insomnia and sleep problems by promoting overall calm. If you wake up at night, a body exploration meditation in which you successively notice and relax every part of your body from head to toe is calming and encourages a smooth return to sleep.

Sleep falls into a unique category in the sense that good quality zzz require much more than just meditation in bed. That's why using meditation as a tool to sleep better, deeper and longer can be a game changer, especially if you're someone who has trouble falling asleep. In scientific terms, meditation helps reduce heart rate by turning on the parasympathetic nervous system and encouraging slower breathing, increasing the chance of a quality night's sleep. The course trains the mind for long-term sustainable change; individual meditation is a specific exercise to send you to sleep. Sleep meditation is a state between being awake and sleeping, in which you put yourself in an “iodic dream”, essentially a state in which the body is completely relaxed but mentally conscious. It is common for people to practice sleep meditation with a guided audio track, usually with a 45- to 50-minute session CD. Calm is free to download and includes a collection of meditations, sleep stories, mindfulness tools, nature scenes and music to concentrate, relax and sleep.

Read on to learn about the different types of sleep meditation and how to meditate to improve sleep. We will also discuss the benefits and potential risks.