How Meditation Helped Me Sleep Better
Have you ever come across those irritating individuals who believe that if you have a cold, you should have water or if you have a bad stomach, you should have a lot of water or if you have a headache, you should have water. Like water is the solution to all. I am sure you remember those irritating individuals…I am one of them. I suggest water to anyone and everyone whenever they tell me there is something wrong with their health. I am sure I will suggest them more water even if they are drowning. Similarly, I suggest meditation for anyone with any mental health related ailments or any physical discomforts. According to me (And I am not afraid to admit that I get it wrong 0.000001% of the time), meditation is a cure for a lot of your ailments.
When I was growing up, my father was my hero. He will always be (May his soul rest in peace). He was a person who was devoted to meditation. He would meditate almost an hour or two everyday. And I could not sit still for more than 2 minutes. I’d tell myself that if I had an hour or two like my father did, I would rather sleep more or go out and play more. Meditation is just not my thing (That’s what I thought, and see how things have changed so much over time). I remember my father had gone for the 10 day Vipasana camp in Mumbai, and he returned a much calmer and even more loving person. I heard similar stories of other people who had gone for the 10 days Vipasana camp, had similar experiences to share.
I was dealing with a lot of personal issues and the stress was affecting every aspect of my life. Post importantly, my sleep. I could not get good sleep at all. I would constantly move around in my bed, never being still and every couple of hours I’d get up and not be able to fall back to sleep. I started to gain weight, got dark circles under my eyes, my behaviour got erratic, I wasn’t able to concentrate and my back was constantly hurting. I decided that if I did not fix this issue at the age of 29, I’d have a very difficult old age. So I applied for the Vipasan camp, but they did not come back to me to let me know if I had gotten admission or not. So I started to look for other meditation or yoga camps. My only criteria for the camp was that I should be able to stay there because I wanted to immerse myself in the experience completely. I found The Yoga Institute in Mumbai and took up their one weeks course on Yoga. During the one week we did a lot of Yoga, discussions on Yoga and of course meditation. I realised through the 7 days that I wasn’t that bad at meditating and I just needed the right push and an environment to get into the groove of it. The 7 days just flew by and I came back feeling extremely positive and I could feel the difference even in the way I thought of things. However, it is always important to remember that the environment created at Meditation camps or Yoga centres are extremely difficult to replicate at home or a community space. So I fell back to my old habits and starting having troubles sleeping all over again. That’s when a friend I had met at the Yoga Institute suggested that I should meditate before I sleep. I was apprehensive at the start, I thought that meditation was a day thing, but when she said it could be done any time of the day, I thought why not give this a shot as well. People usually go to sleeping pills for the solution, I am absolutely against it. So I thought I’d give this a shot as well. I would meditate 5 to 10 minutes on my bed itself just before I slept and honestly, I have not had trouble sleeping after that. Wherever I go, or travel, I make sure I meditate for a few minutes before I sleep and that’s helped me sleep better immensely. Even on days if I had to get up early in the morning and I could not sleep on time, I’d get good 4 to 5 hours of sleep because of the meditation I did before I went to sleep.
The meditation technique I use is not complicated. Most people think meditation is complicated, you need to have the right environment, atmosphere, place, spot, time etc. But that’s not it. You can meditate any time, any place, you just have to have the will to go for it and try to make it a habit. I simply sit cross legged on my bed, close my eyes, and watch my breath. I try to focus my mind on my breath. The mind constantly tries to run away into the next thought that comes into my mind, but I don’t try to fight the thought, I just take the focus away from the thought, back to my breathing. No need to chant mantras (Although if that works for you, that’s great too. Idea is to calm your mind and any natural way is a good way). And when you first start, it will be frustrating journey as you’ll feel that your mind is constantly running away to the next thought, but like any other habit, you need to be patient with it and I am sure you’ll be able to make a habit of it. After a few days of meditating before you sleep, you’ll slowly realise that you are sleeping better and feeling happier. For some people though, who are starting their journey on meditation, may find it difficult, so I have created a platform called https://dhyaan.me that has different types of guided meditations, meditative music, hypnotic music and chill tracks to help you to bring your mind to ease any place, any time of the day.
If sleeping is your problem, here is a guided meditation from the website that can help you get some good sleep:
Let me know if this helps you
