Many of us suffer from a lack of sleep that goes unrecognized and underreported in society. We don’t value the gravity of insufficient sleep and how it affects our body and mind. Instead, we generally believe that “not getting enough sleep” is not a significant health concern for us in the larger scheme of life’s difficulties. It is a dilemma that deserves serious attention, and one of the possible solutions is guided sleep meditation.
What is guided sleep meditation, and how does it work?
Guided sleep meditation usually comes in the form of an audio recording that shows you how to stop thinking and let your mind rest. It has gained popularity as one of the possible aids to sleep in our sleep-deprived culture.
Remember that a poor sleep schedule is linked to an increased risk of hypertension, anxiety, and heart disease. It can leave you disoriented, distracted, and unable to work, slowly sapping away your motivation and willingness to do anything. Hence adequate sleep is essential for you. Let us look at how you can sleep better and get the best out of guided sleep meditations through various techniques.
Table of Contents
- How To Improve Sleep Quality & Make Guided Sleep Meditation More Effective?
- Ways To Practice Guided Sleep Meditation
- 10 Minute Best Guided Sleep Meditation Channels on YouTube
How to improve sleep quality and make guided sleep meditation more effective?
1. Say goodbye to your smartphone addiction.
All of us have suffered the consequences of distraction from smartphones and computers. We can lose track of time while scrolling through social media or watching our favorite series. The blue light emitted by your cell phone screen restrains the production of melatonin, the hormone which regulates your sleep cycle (circadian rhythm).
Having your phone’s display set to warmer temperatures helps reduce the strain on your eyes. This feature is available in most smartphones and desktops today, and you can download an app that provides the same. Keeping your smartphone in another room or locked up somewhere before sleeping motivates you to sleep and takes away the stimulation that prevents you from doing so.
2. Meditate, rest, or take a nap
Believe it or not, you can pick up various healthy habits that quickly curb your tendency to pick up your smartphone or laptop whenever you feel bored or want to entertain yourself, relax, or have a good time. Meditation or simply taking a rest may seem uninspiring and daunting activities, but they give you the much-needed effect of restoration that sleep also provides. Another exercise you can use is power napping; this term refers to taking a nap that restores your energy and makes it easier to work midday. While they are not a substitute for proper sleep, you can get some rest if you must stay awake for a long time through these practices.
3. Try not to drink caffeine or alcohol
Contrary to popular belief, studies have shown that caffeine does not directly link to heart disease. However, it may cause symptoms of anxiety, jitteriness, and insomnia, which may hinder you from functioning normally. To avoid these symptoms, you need only switch to decaf and enjoy the same coffee cup as before. Almonds, turkey, chamomile tea, kiwi, and tart cherry juice are other drinks you can have before going to sleep.
Alcohol, on the other hand, puts healthy people to sleep by making them tired, but it reduces rapid eye movement(REM). Reduced REM disturbs your sleep cycle and makes it harder to go back to sleep.
4. Create a self-care routine
Self-care routines can help you increase the quality of sleep. For instance, you can start by getting enough exercise throughout the day. Exercises improve blood circulation, strengthens your immune system, and benefits mental health conditions like depression and anxiety.
Another self-care activity that can help you sleep better is Progressive Muscle Relaxation(PMS). This activity has benefits for insomnia, anxiety, and stress. How to do it? Tense and relax a muscle group progressively; you can tense it for 10 seconds and relax it in 5. Cover all the muscle groups in your body through this technique, and finally, let yourself relax completely.
5. Maintain a favorable environment
You can also avoid working in your bedroom. If you do so, your mind naturally forms an association between work and the location. This puts you in a tough spot and can cause a disturbance at the workplace. Note that having a room temperature that is too high or too low can also hinder your ability to sleep well.
However, your environment doesn’t mean just your physical environment. It refers to your emotional environment too. For instance, setting boundaries with people and having supportive family relationships will make you less prone to stress, anxiety, and other mental health conditions. It will also lead to greater life satisfaction and happiness.
6. Reduce stimulation before you sleep
We are constantly surrounded by noise, something to do or see. Setting up a time to just be silent and do nothing without sleep can refresh you and provide a much-needed break from your busy lifestyle. Sleep can calm your mind and refresh your body. It also produces a lack of stimulation that slowly but surely makes you tired and fall asleep.
You can also use the time before sleeping to reflect on how you spend your day, use journaling techniques, or think about how your day went. For instance, you could reflect on the mistakes you made and the lessons you learned today.
Finally, you can also practice guided sleep meditations to make sleep a rewarding and refreshing experience for yourself.
Ways To Practice Guided Sleep Meditation
1. Breathing Meditation
Meditation concerned with the breath is easy since you are always breathing. You can start by observing your breath, not changing how you breathe. Watch it and don’t focus on anything else; you may slowly become drowsy and fall asleep. Or you can start by taking slow, deep breaths, ensuring that breathing doesn’t rouse you into a sleep of wakefulness.
You can also couple breathing meditation at night with deep breathing exercises or pranayama during the day for better control over your breath.
2. Yogic Nidra
Imagine being able to practice yoga while sleeping too. Yogic Nidra is a practice of being aware of your body. It can also be called mindful meditation sleeping. In this practice, you notice your body, how you feel and what your senses are experiencing. It can help you become familiar with your body and understand your sleeping habits. Some versions of Yogic Nidra also focus on more profound aspects of spirituality, for instance, chakras and the different levels of existence your body possesses.
3. Visualization and Guided Imagery
Visualizing a calming or peaceful scenario as supplemented through your headphones (as headphones give you a more immersive experience and drown out distractions) is a great way to fall asleep. You may feel more relaxed and happy after waking up the next day. There are multiple options for guided imagery accessible to you just a click away and for free! Some platforms for relaxing, peaceful sounds, deep sleep guided meditation YouTube, and stories to help you sleep are listed below.
10-Minute Best Guided Sleep Meditation YouTube
1. Headspace
Headspace is a platform that focuses on meditation, mindfulness, sleep, and stress. It has a mission to help people with their mental health through the well-researched practice of mindfulness. This YouTube channel has a lot of valuable content that can help you relax, act as deep sleep guided meditation YouTube, or meditate. You can also download their app.
2. The Honest Guys
The honest guys are a wholesome bunch as they provide all their high-quality YouTube content for free. Their channel is focused on meditation, visualizations, and guided imagery and has an archive of more than 450 videos. You can find a lot of 10-minute guided sleep meditation on this channel.
3. ChilledCow & other Lo-fi channels
ChilledCow is one of the classic lo-fi channels. If you’ve seen a 24/7 stream with an animated student, it was likely this channel. They have a decent collection of lo-fi that can be used for sleeping, studying, or relaxing. Many other channels provide a variety of lo-fi content, making your day more chill and act as a best guided sleep meditation YouTube channel at night.
4. Get sleepy
This channel’s motive is pretty straightforward. You can find new sleep-inducing music and stories that calm the body and mind, putting you in a state of drowsiness here every week. This channel also claims to be the #1 sleep podcast, and they likely are in terms of focus and popularity.
5. Calm
Calm has one of the best collections of sounds to relax you, their archive contains nature sounds, guided sleep meditations, and other calming tunes, and the best thing is this platform is available anywhere you go. You can download the calm app or add it as an extension to your web browser and continue surfing the web as you want with minimum distractions.
Conclusion
Sleep is a necessary component of health that affects you physically and mentally. You can improve your sleep quality through guided sleep meditation. It is effective as it relaxes you and quickly puts you in a state of near sleep. There are other precautions and steps you can take to sleep better. These include eliminating distractions and setting a self-care routine.
Gratefulness is one of the best techniques to help yourself relax and remove the stress and pressure that hinder your sleep. Here is a list of the 11 best gratitude apps to get you started on your journey to less stress, anxiety, and overthinking.
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