Mindfulness meditation is the exercise of focusing on your breathing to help bring your mind into the present, rather than thinking about the past or future. This is a great way to clear a busy mind and prepare it for rest. If you find your mind can be excessively busy at night, or that you spend time over-thinking or worrying too much, meditation is a way of re-training your thoughts to induce a relaxation response and ease it into a restful sleep.
In addition to helping you sleep, meditation has a host of other benefits. It;
- Helps to relieve stress-related symptoms such as anxiety, depression and anger
- Improves focus and concentration
- Enhances emotional stability
- Increases happiness
- Improves memory
- Reduces stress responses
So, how do you get started?
The best way to get into the habit of a daily practice is to start with small meditations. You may think meditating requires you to sit cross-legged for hours on end, but mindfulness can start with as little as 30 seconds a day. Build up to longer periods of time as you become more familiar with the practice of focusing on your breath and clearing your mind.
Set up an area or place where you feel comfortable meditating. This can be on your bed, outside, in a chair, on a yoga mat, wherever you feel most able to clear your mind. This will be your calm zone, a place you can return to whenever you feel you need to stop thinking.
Breathe deeply and focus on silently counting to 100 on your exhalations. You could also visualise a beautiful, serene place in your mind and think of how it smells, sounds and feels.
Some people find that listening to guided meditations or soothing music and nature sounds from YouTube or Insight Timer helps them to focus, visualise and breath at the same time (believe it or not, this can be tricky when you first get started!). Use a smart pillow to listen to your meditations or music as you fall asleep, this means you don’t have to worry about turning your phone off or getting caught up in cables as you drift off.
Try to keep a meditation log to help you stick to your newly formed habit and give yourself a reward for keeping at it.
If you would like to find out more about how REM-Fit sleep monitoring technology can help you to get a better night’s rest, please get in touch with our experienced, knowledgeable staff by calling 020 8731 0020 or email us via sales@rem-fit.co.uk.
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