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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
Benefits of Mindfulness: Mindful Living Can Change Your Life
Mindfulness 101: A Beginner's Guide
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Learn three strategies to soften a busy mind and tense body, and drift into deep sleep.
In today's session, we are going to talk
about sleep, three tips for deep sleep.
More to come on that soon.
For now, let's settle in together by
tuning into the sound of the bells.
Okay, so let's talk sleep.
Sleep was a pain point for me
for about 10 years of my life.
Mostly through adolescence,
I struggled with sleep.
I'd wake up many times throughout
the night, tough for me to
fall asleep, stay asleep.
And my sleep always just
felt light,light and surface.
And I had taken sleep meds,
it just made me groggy.
Didn't like it.
And I started meditating, and
literally within three weeks, I went
from waking up over 30 times a night,
only a couple of times a night.
And it has been like that since.
I have no issues with my .sleep.
, It's easy for me to fall
asleep quickly, stay asleep and
wake up feeling rejuvenated.
And I've heard similar stories of
people I've taught over the years
who struggle with sleep and then
engage in a meditation practice
and their sleep improved radically.
So first thing is, a
big plug for meditation.
It's a great way to simply learn
how to settle the mind, calm the
mind, not get so pulled around by
distractions and also release excess
tension in the body, which is very
important when you're trying to settle.
But if you don't have a
meditation practice, that's okay.
I want to give you three steps you
can use to deepen your sleep if
you're struggling or to make it even
deeper, if you're already sleep well.
Tip number one is to replay the day.
As soon as you wake up in the
morning, you quickly go into battle.
Okay.
That's a terrible way to put it.
Life isn't necessarily a battle, but
you're quickly going into this stimulation
and the momentum and the to-dos your life.
And throughout that, if you're not
attuned and present to what's happening
as it's happening, a lot of energy
can get built up throughout the day.
Little problems that maybe you
didn't get to resolve in your mind,
sort of get pushed in the back
or fill up your backpack of life.
And at the end of the day, if your
mind doesn't feel like it had the space
to attend to and process the various
things that arose, it may still be
working to try to find resolution.
So this step is a way for you to
start at the beginning of the day
and visualize yourself moving through
all your various tasks so that your
mind can feel like everything was
addressed that needed to be addressed.
It's kind of like organizing a messy room.
When you walk into a room and
there's so much clutter, the mind
doesn't even know where to begin.
And while you're in there the entire time,
it, even if you're not thinking about
it consciously, there's this sense that
something needs to be cleaned up or fixed.
And we can have the same experience
when we get to the end of our day.
So much that happened, so much
metaphorical clutter that we
need to organize it a bit.
And just touching through the various
experiences in a chronological way,
helps the mind feel, okay, this
happened, this happened, this happened.
I went through everything.
There's nothing I need
to attend to right now.
And now I can let go.
Sometimes when we do this, though,
we can get snagged on certain
experiences throughout the day.
So make sure that as you're replaying,
you're not going into certain
conversations or issues or problems
that arose with the intention to
fully process or fix or solve, because
that can, as you can imagine, be,
can take up quite a bit of time.
It's more that you're acknowledging.
Okay, there's that experience.
I can revisit that tomorrow.
Okay.
Then I went to this, then I went to
this, then I had this conversation.
Then I had this meal
and then this happened.
Oh, that's something that
I might need to attend to.
Okay.
We'll put that away for tonight
and revisit that tomorrow.
And that telling the mind that we'll
revisit that tomorrow, we don't need to
address that right now, just lets the
more primal part of your brain soften
and relax and not feel like it has to
be in the background saying, remember
this, remember this, remember this.
It can even be helpful to
write these things down.
If they do feel very important.
So that's the first one, replay the day.
It can be done literally in 30 seconds
or over the course of a few minutes.
Tip number two is inviting
the body to turn off.
Now, what does this mean?
Because it's not like the body is
actually turning off when we sleep.
I see it as offering an invitation to the
body, saying, Hey, You worked hard today.
You moved a lot.
You grabbed a lot of things.
You bent down a bunch.
You digested a bunch of food.
This is your opportunity to settle, to
not have to work, to turn off for a bit.
It's kind of like turning
off the batteries.
And in my experience, the body responds
really well to this, to this invitation.
So how does it work?
Well, I like to start
all the way at my feet.
And just feel, feel my little feet.
Say, Hey feet, how's it going?
I don't, I might not say
that, but something nice.
A little embrace.
Hey feet.
And then say, it's okay to turn off.
Turn off.
You can move up to the, the
shins, the calves, maybe feel like
you're breathing into that area.
Breathing in and then turn off.
And you could say turning off or
it's okay to turn off, but something
that's a gentle invitation.
Now where you want to be careful with
this is turn off, can sound like a
command and it can come across aggressive.
Even if we're saying it to
ourselves without that intention.
It could easily go turn
off, turn off, turn off.
And that can create extra strain and
stress both in the mind and in the body.
So just remember that this is a,
it's why I say it's an invitation.
We can never force the
body to do anything.
We can ever force it to be
relaxed, but we can invite it to.
So we moved from the feet all the
way up to the top of the head.
And often by the end of this, any
excess tension that was there or
any part of the body that still felt
engaged or activated has at least had
some permission to soften and relax.
And this is a really important
next step as we're settling
ourselves for deeper sleep.
So that's tip number two, inviting the
body to turn off, starting from the feet
all the way up to the top of the head.
And this brings us to tip number three,
which is to anchor your attention on
your breath until you drift to sleep.
This step is important for two reasons.
The first, there's a lot of research
to demonstrate the connection between
the breath and the nervous system.
And when we're in touch with our
breathing, especially if our breathing
is long and smooth, it is very
settling for the nervous system.
And in the context of sleep that's of
most importance for the body to just
feel that it can relax, that it can
be at ease, that it's safe to do that.
And the breath is a quick
shortcut to signal that to the
body, to the nervous system.
The second reason why anchoring on the
breath is important is because much of the
time when we're struggling with sleep it's
because our mind is all over the place.
Caught up in the tomorrow,
caught up in what's happened
already throughout the day.
Well, step one helps with that, but also
just caught up in judgments and ideas.
And I think we've all had that experience
while trying to fall asleep or even
in the middle of the night, how.
Neurotic and obsessive the mind
can be and how frustrating that
is in the context of sleep.
So anchoring to the breath is not a
way to totally clear the thoughts,
because once we set that up as an
expectation, we'll get more frustrated
because the thoughts rarely go away.
We're just offering more of our
attention and presence to the breath.
And when we notice the mind wander,
we just bring it back to the breath.
Wanders again, we just
bring it back to the breath.
And this is meditation 101.
So there's nothing radical here.
But what I think is a little more
unique is making the process of
falling asleep a meditation in itself.
So instead of trying to relax or
trying to force ourselves to fall
asleep, we just be with the breath.
That's the only intention.
Not have to clear the mind, not have
to find some deep sleep-like state.
Now I'm just going to be with the breath.
And that simple activity will collect
the attention enough so that we're
not swept around by so many thoughts.
And that collected attention will also
start to settle the body even more.
And the beauty of this step is that
you just do it until you fall asleep.
And the double beauty is that
even if it takes a while to fall
asleep, you're also meditating.
And the research does show that meditation
practice over time will deepen sleep.
So even if it's not helping
you immediately in the short
term, you're setting yourself
up more over the longterm.
The best way I think to focus
on the breath in this step is to
feel the sensations in your belly.
You can even place one hand on your belly.
There's something about that
that tends to be very settling.
And focus a little more on the exhale in
this practice, because the exhale is often
going to be the most relaxing piece of it.
And it can be an invitation for the
body to relax a little more deeply,
settle more deeply into the mattress
or the surface that you're sleeping on.
Okay.
So those are our three
tips for deep sleep.
One, replay the day.
Two, invite the body to turn off.
Three, anchor your attention on
the breath until you fall asleep.
Okay.
That wraps up our main content for today.
Great being with you.
Take care.
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