If you are having trouble getting a good night’s rest, you are not alone. The numbers from the National Sleep Foundation are staggering. 30 to 40 percent of adults suffer from a form of insomnia. This lack of sleep permeates many aspects of life. Not only does it make the next day tougher, but it also impacts your long-term health and happiness.
Quieting Your Mind With Guided Sleep Meditation
One of the main complaints from people dealing with insomnia is difficulty falling asleep. Stress and anxiety are common causes of this. Lying in bed going over the events of the day or worrying about the future, are both issues that keep many of us from drifting off to sleep. We are stressed out, overwhelmed, and overstimulated - not a good combination for healthy sleep patterns. We need a way to quiet our minds. Enter meditation.
As we have discussed before, meditation helps you move outside of your head and focus instead on the present moment. It brings you to a calmer place, where the pressures of life fade away. It can help calm your mind and drown out those runaway thoughts.
Guided meditations for sleep provide nature sounds or music, coupled with a gentle voice, to lead you to a quieter place — a slow and soothing place. It’s important to remember that guided sleep meditation is not about forcing yourself to sleep. It’s about relaxing your body and slowing your mind to better prepare you for sleep.
Physiologically speaking, guided sleep meditation activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which helps to lower your heart rate and slow down your breathing.
How Do Guided Sleep Meditation & Nature Sounds Work
We have created six new channels for guided sleep meditation. Each begins with a soothing voice that gives you permission to get comfortable, to rest your head, and to close your eyes.
Then the power of nature takes over. Whether you choose a walk on the beach, fresh mountain air, or a cabin in the woods — sounds from nature enter your headphones or speakers and bestow a sense of calm.
Natural sounds and environments have been linked with calm and relaxation for centuries. Research confirms it. Using brain scans, heart-rate monitors, and behavioral experiments, researchers have shown that, like meditation, nature has the ability to calm us on a physiological level.
As the nature sounds create the perfect soundscape for relaxation, the guided sleep meditation starts. The voice redirects your attention away from your worried thoughts toward your body. This process is called a "body scan." You feel the sun on your skin or the sand under your feet, instead of worrying about what you are going to make the kids for lunch tomorrow. You’re letting go of stimulating thoughts and noticing bodily sensations instead.
Your cares melt away, you’re left focusing on the present — feeling the sensation of each breath. The guiding voice fades out and you're left with soft, soothing sounds of nature to help you drift off to a rejuvenating sleep.
Like any process, guided sleep meditation takes practice. Learning how to shift your focus and relax your body isn’t always easy. But, when you keep at it, you may notice improvements in your ability to fall and stay asleep.
Sleep Music, As Nature Intended
We have six channels of guided sleep meditation for you to choose from. Give them a listen and find the channel that works for you.
- Listen to the gentle sounds of the forest and your step on the ground with a Walk In The Forest.
- Relax On The Beach with gentle waves lulling you to sleep.
- Enjoy a Starry Night and sleep under the blanket of stars.
- Take a trip in a Rowboat on a quiet lake.
- Hike to the Top Of The Mountain and take in the fresh air.
- Rest your head in a Cabin In The Woods from the comfort of your bed.
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Listen to calming meditation music and sleep music on Calm Radio. Download the Calm Radio music app and enjoy 1000 channels of relaxing music, guided sleep music channels, classical music, audiobooks and podcasts. Enjoy inspiring devotional articles on faith and listen to calming Christian music here.
