How I Achieved Healthy Meditation Practice
Over the past month, I’ve taken part in the Lifehacker Fitness Challenge , working on developing a consistent meditation regimen. I have dedicated 30 days of meditation to break my aversion to the practice and build a healthy daily routine to reduce stress and anxiety. In the beginning, I started every morning with a three minute guided meditation just to revitalize my mind to the idea of daily meditation. The second week, however, was a little difficult: I switched my usual time to noon and found myself even more stressed. But in the third and fourth weeks, I switched to sleep meditation, which yielded better results than I could have imagined.
Meditation before bed
Realizing that daytime meditation was not for me, I decided to try meditation for better sleep. Healthline says meditation can increase serotonin and melatonin (sleep hormone) levels, lower blood pressure, and activate the parts of the brain that control sleep. It can prevent insomnia and reduce its effects. I don’t necessarily sleep badly. As soon as I fall asleep, I sleep soundly all night. The problem for me was getting enough sleep – when I go to bed, it’s already late. I needed to learn to find time to get ready for bed and not find extra things to do before bed.
Luckily, Headspace has an entire section of the app dedicated to sleeping . To start my dream meditation, I selected the Wind downs section. There are several scenarios in this area of the application, such as Shutdown, which aims to get rid of the day to day; Deep breathing, using attention to breathing to induce a state of calm and Going Back to Sleep, exercises to help you fall asleep again after waking up in the middle of the night. For my experiment, I chose Shutdown, Sleep, and Goodnight to get rid of the day and get my body ready for sleep.
In each session, you are asked to lie on your back (I sleep on my side, so this was a change for me). Sliding the noise canceling headphones over the satin cap (needed for tightly pressed edges), I relaxed as the teacher’s voice told me to take a deep breath. On the third breath, you are asked to close your eyes. The guide then draws your attention to different areas of your body, such as your feet and then your calves, slowly moving up your body. The teacher asks you to imagine how body parts are turned off, like a computer. There were long minutes of silence between these instructions, during which I passed out like light. At first I woke up thinking, “Oh no, I missed the session!” and again I heard the voice of the guide who told me to turn off the next part of the body. As the days passed, I gave in to the program and fell asleep blissfully.
I immediately noticed a change: I woke up refreshed and feeling more energetic physically and mentally during the day. Although I have no problem getting restful sleep, I have found that I have achieved a more favorable sleep state due to intentional sleep patterns. I slept more and went to bed with a calm, not a racing mind. I continued this practice by choosing different activities. Some activities focused only on breathing, while others took time to explain why it was so important to shut off. All sleep sessions start at 10 minutes, which I didn’t mind after going from five minutes to 10 minutes in the second week. I even tried 15 minute sessions after a few days.
Mission Complete
What a success this test was – and it really was a test for a man with such a strained mind. I was able to embrace the idea of meditation and constantly participate in the sessions every day. I think sleep meditation is most effective, but I will continue to experiment. I consider this a healthy daily routine that I have and will continue for years to come. I may not be able to meditate every day, but it has become a regular activity in my life.