Your life is a reflection of how you sleep, and how you sleep is a reflection of your life.
- Dr. Rafael Pelayo
Last week’s blog, Meditation: Rx for Sleep, began with “What is Meditation” and ended with two simple ways to meditate. This week we dive deeper into meditation with three meditation tips, a soothing breath practice and a singing meditation for peacefulness.
3 Meditation Tips
1. Set a Sacred Space
Your sacred space should be quiet and free of distractions. Create an altar. Light a candle or incense. Remember to sit up straight, whether in a chair or on the floor, to help maintain alertness and enhance the flow of energy (prana) in the body.
Thoughts will inevitably drift in and out of the mind, but that’s normal. If you find yourself thinking about the future or the past, just return to focusing your awareness on the breath.
Meditation increases awareness (consciousness). it allows us to observe where our minds go when they’re free from distractions. Some of us tend to dwell in the past, some of us prefer to worry about the future and others can’t stop themselves from having imaginary conversations or arguments that will likely never happen.
Observing these thoughts, watching them come and go like clouds in the sky, is the first step to releasing these thoughts.
2. Start with a Breath Meditation
For beginners, a guided breath meditation is an easy place to start:
The Spaciousness Breath by Cayenne
3. Add a Singing Meditation
Listen to this healing mantra (sound formula), as sung by Swaha, a talented duo from Toronto. It is Saha Na Vavathu, a peace mantra often sung at the beginning of a yoga class, just as OM Shanti, Shanti Shanti-hi, another peace mantra, is chanted at the end. It means:
May the Divine protect us all, nourish us all, and keep us together.
It’s a peace mantra that’s soothing to the nervous system and a mantra for higher consciousness:
Saha Na Vavatu: A Peace Mantra
When is the best time to meditate?
Morning and evening coincide with the body’s natural rhythms and are the best times for meditation.
Start with 10 minutes twice a day (15-30 minutes is ideal). For beginners, I recommend the Spaciousness Breath outlined in this blog, or nadi shodhana, alternate nostril breathing, commonly taught in yoga classes.
The beneficial effects of meditation accumulate with time. It’s better to spend ten minutes meditating every day, than for an hour once a week.
How Meditation Can Help YOU
People are drawn to meditation for many different reasons. Some begin meditating because of a doctor’s recommendation to lower stress and anxiety. Others come to meditation seeking relief from fearful, angry, or painful thoughts that constantly flood their mind. Still others come to meditation as a spiritual path, using prayerful meditation as a tool for greater self-understanding and a deeper connection with Spirit.
The physical benefits of meditation include lower blood pressure, lower stress hormone levels, a boost in the immune system and relief from anxiety.
Meditation can also be an essential tool for a better nights sleep. When the mind is quiet, sleep comes naturally at its own time. In a 1996 study reported in The American Journal of Medicine, 91% of chronic insomnia patients were able to reduce or eliminate their sleeping pills by using meditation for sleep instead of medication.
Recommended by celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to Ellen DeGeneres to Deepak Chopra, meditation helps us break through harmful old thought patterns so we can live in the present, free from anxiety about the past or concerns about the future. Start meditating today and get a more restful night’s sleep. Feel more peaceful, calm, creative and connected.
More? Mantra Meditation: An Alternative Treatment for Anxiety and Depression, available on Amazon and harrisongravesmd.com.
Summary
Early in life sleep comes easy. Have you noticed how natural sleep is for babies? Babies don’t experience the same sleep maladies that plague adults. They fall asleep effortlessly and wake up rested — the goal for every adult.
Yet somewhere along the road to adulthood, that natural sleep train often goes off the track. Most often the cause is stress and anxiety. Most of my patients would rather not depend on prescription sleeping pills that treat symptoms but rarely cure disease.
They prefer guided meditations, natural herbs, and yoga therapy.
harrisongravesmd.com
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