3 Ways to Fall Asleep
For those nights when you lay there, eyes wide open and cannot fall asleep because your mind is running wild. I’ve got you!
Sleeping requires you to also consider how well you have prepped yourself during the day to fall asleep at night. If you want to learn more about this, check out my blog on Ways to Improve your Sleep Quality.
Okay so now you’re laying there at 2 am and your eyes are wide awake and you cannot calm your thoughts.
Here are 3 ways to help you sleep
1. Listen to a singing bowl meditation sound track to calm your brainwaves
You need something to calm your thoughts, that means, reducing the number of thoughts in your mind and also the intensity of your thoughts.
Listening to singing bowls played in a particular way can help you do this. By listening to something powerful and purposely created to help you sleep, is very different to listening to any other kind of music.
Those who have been to Mirosuna sound meditation classes, know that singing bowls played in special techniques can send half the class to sleep.
That is because singing bowls have frequencies and vibrations that can help shift your brain waves from alpha (when you are fully aware and active) to theta (relaxed) to delta (deeply relaxed or asleep). The sounds are also so interesting that your brain feels curious and gravitates toward them, making you forget the other thoughts you have.
Fun fact, when I was editing the recording for my singing bowl track which you can buy here, I fell asleep numerous times and couldn’t make it to the end because I became too relaxed.
I created this track specifically to help you sleep so visit this link to learn more. I have also provided a free meditation and instructional track to help guide you along with a 2 minute free sample of the sound meditation so you can see if you like it. Only thing is, remember to use headphones!
It is $15 AUD for the track and goes for 30 minutes.
2. Do a meditation - that helps you power down, not up
Before you switch off on this point because you think it’s too hard, I’m going to show you that it is not!
This is my go to technique when I can’t sleep as it’s effective rate on me is 90%. There are two times when this won’t work for me and that is either when I have had way too much sugar and caffeine (which no amount of meditation is going to help!) or when I’ve really hit rock bottom with an issue that I need more time to work through.
Because most people think meditation is hard, this will naturally be their last option. But over time, when you master this, it will end up being your GO TO option.
The reason why meditations work is because it forces your mind to have a single point of focus. When you try hard to focus on one thing such as a visualisation, like if I told you to imagine yourself standing under the sun, with the rays warming up the hairs on your arm and your toes shuffling in the hot sand, you are not thinking about what meeting you have on tomorrow.
As you are guided through a meditation or visualisation, your brain concentrates on this relaxing thought, your energy starts to calm down, your brainwaves start to slow down dropping you into a deeply relaxed state. This is getting you closer to delta brainwaves where you then drift off asleep.
Of course as with all things, it takes practise, technique and patience.
You can either learn a meditation and guide yourself through it or you can listen to one with headphones while in bed.
I have different meditations that I love to teach at Mirosuna for sleeping. I teach you how to do the meditation so you can guide yourself when you encounter these sleepless nights. If you can’t get to my classes, you can also try this simple meditation that I have included in the bottom of this blog.
If you can’t get to one of my classes and need guidance, here is a guided body scan meditation by Belinda Davidson that you can purchase and listen to when you are rolling around with your eyes wide open at 2 am. It’s a rather long meditation but once you relax into it, you might find yourself drifting off before you get half way.
3. Write it down
On those nights that you are staying up because you cannot stop thinking about all this stuff you have to get done, just get back up and follow these steps:
- 1. Put pen to paper and write down your to do list in bullet point form. Try not to use your phone as the light may just disturb you.
- 2. Know that now you have written down everything, you can rest peacefully and not risk forgetting anything.
- 3. Repeat this to yourself - I do not need to worry. I have written down everything I need to do and it will be there when I wake up. I cannot worry about something that I cannot control at 2 am at night.
- 4. Then try this meditation below.
Try this meditation
- 1. Take a deep breath, picture a bubble inside your head. Put all your thoughts in this bubble, the things that are keeping you up. Be aware of all that you are putting in here.
- 2. Now send that bubble down your body very slowly as it passes your throat, your chest, your stomach, your navel, your thighs, legs and finally imagine it leaving your body through your feet and disappearing all together.
- 3. Take a deep cleansing breath that is not polluted with these thoughts. Feel that breath enter your nose, fill up your stomach, then your lungs, then slowly and gently exhale it.
- 4. Repeat some deep cleansing breaths where you feel fresh oxygen go through your body, unpolluted by your busy thoughts, feel it go in, feel it go out. Actively concentrate on breathing as slow and as deep as you can. The more you focus on your breath, the less you have room to focus on your thoughts. This will bring you calm and peace, which helps prepare your mind for sleep.
- 5. Now the next part is to go back to normal breathing but trying your best to stay in this state of peace without letting all those thoughts flood your mind again. If they come back, go back to step 2 and repeat.
“If you let cloudy water settle, it will become clear. If you let your upset mind settle, your course will also become clear ” – Buddha
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog and learnt some new ways to help you fall asleep. Remember as silly or simple as some of these may sound, it does work! If you are still struggling to sleep on your own, join our daily classes or Sound Meditations as they are designed to be trance inducing and most people fall asleep in them, even the biggest insomniacs!
Sleep well,
Sally Kellett
Founder of Mirosuna
