The Power of Sleep

Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, we're going to talk about the power of sleep. We often think about sleep in the context of rest, which is important. However, sleep can also be a powerful tool to work through problems that you can't figure out with your conscious mind or you're struggling to figure out. So here's a simple strategy I like to use that can benefit you from your night of sleep, even more than it already does.

Before bed, set an intention for your subconscious mind to explore during sleep. Something you're wrestling with, something you'd like some insight on. Let that question permeate your mind and your being as you let your mind drift off while in bed. Then upon waking, write down your dreams in as much detail as possible, if you can remember them. And explore if there are any themes, insights related to the problem you're working on.

Sometimes the insight will be very obvious and you'll wake up with just a felt sense of what to do or seeing something from a new perspective. Other times it will be more subtle. So the main point here is just to give your subconscious mind something to work on as it's going to bed and see what arises the next day. I suggest trying this out for a few weeks, let's just say 30 days, to give it time. It's not like it's a big time commitment.

In fact, it doesn't require any extra time. As you're lying down, just give your mind something to chew on while it's sleeping and see if it's beneficial. Thank you for your practice. Let's settle in for today's meditation.