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Meditating regularly, at any time of day, can help us fall asleep sooner and sleep more soundly when it’s time for bed. During daytime meditation, we typically try to stay awake and alert while practicing. With sleep meditation, the invitation is to let calm and relaxation take over, to allow yourself to drift off to sleep.
This calm and spacious guided meditation with Sean Fargo can be used as a daytime practice or as a sleep meditation. To meditate yourself to sleep, practice this meditation while lying down in a comfortable position with eyes closed. Stay present with the narration, yet allow for drowsiness as it arises. May this meditation be of benefit to you in your mindfulness journey.
Find hundreds more guided audio meditations or download 200 meditation scripts to expand your personal practice, or to share with others.
Research studies confirm that mindfulness meditation helps us sleep better at night, even if we practice first thing in the morning. A consistent meditation practice minimizes rumination and the overthinking that can keep us up at night. It balances the nervous system and reduces cortisol, the stress hormone that keeps us tossing and turning.
Other sleep hygiene practices, such as avoiding screen time before bed and sleeping in a dark, quiet place are important, but sleep meditation has been proven more effective for getting a good night’s sleep.
The quality of allowance that we develop with mindfulness meditation is particularly effective for steadying and calming the mind. This can help quiet the thoughts that might otherwise keep us alert and agitated at night.
When we allow for whatever is arising in the mind, including thoughts and emotions, we cease putting effort into suppressing or pushing things away. This allows the energy of thoughts and emotions to come and go naturally, with emphasis on letting them go. What we no longer resist, no longer persists.
Emotions, when allowed to naturally arise and dissipate, tend to have a brief lifespan in our bodies and minds. Those that remain longer do so because we’re holding on to them, in some cases by putting too much effort into pushing them away.
Allowing this moment to be however it is, and to change however it wants to, takes practice. As we cultivate this skill, however, we find more peace, ease and calm in our daily life. We can rest in our experience, including in the hours and minutes leading up to bedtime.
Learn more about sleep meditation and how to use it in your personal practice and teaching with these additional free mindfulness resources:
About Sean Fargo:
Sean Fargo is a former Buddhist monk and the founder of Mindfulness Exercises. The online platform, which has shared free and premium mindfulness resources with over 3 million people worldwide, has now certified over 500 Mindfulness Teachers.
Sean is the lead instructor for the teacher training program, a unique self-paced approach which invites world-renowned mindfulness teachers to share their insights and experiences. Sean has taught mindfulness and meditation for corporations including Facebook, Google and Tesla and for health and government organizations, prisons and hospitals around the world.
