How Bedtime Meditation Can Help Turn Your Brain Off at Night

We all know that getting enough sleep—and getting good quality sleep—is important for our health and happiness. But what can you do if you can’t fall asleep quickly or sleep soundly once you are asleep? It might be time to try bedtime meditation—mindful meditation techniques designed to help you fall asleep and stay asleep.

Understanding Sleep Difficulties

“Falling asleep and staying asleep” is certainly much easier said than done. There are many barriers to good sleep. Let’s examine some of them and their effects on our health.

Common Sleep Issues and Their Impact on Overall Well-Being

Difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep is often due to stress. It can be difficult to unwind after a long hard day, leaving you wound up and anxious as you’re trying to fall asleep. To make matters worse, not being able to fall asleep when you want to can also cause stress, leaving you even more anxious than before.

Insomnia is the chronic inability to fall asleep and stay asleep. Many people experience insomnia and disorders that can accompany it, like restless legs syndrome and sleep apnea. These medical conditions can keep you from getting a good night’s sleep even in the best of circumstances.

Not getting enough sleep or good sleep can affect both your mental and physical health. Being tired during the day can wreak havoc on your focus and attention, and regular sleeplessness can actually increase the likelihood of experiencing depression and anxiety. An increased risk of dementia has also been associated with lack of sleep.

Many chronic health problems have also been linked to lack of sleep, including:

• Obesity
• Heart disease
• Kidney disease
• Diabetes
• High blood pressure

Lack of sleep is also associated with being more susceptible to catching cold and craving salty, sweet, and starchy foods, which in turn has been connected with obesity and diabetes in some research.

In addition, using your phone or another electronic screen right before bed also disrupts your sleep; in fact, even excessive screen time during the day can negatively affect your sleep that night.

How Bedtime Meditation Can Help Improve Sleep Quality

Bedtime meditations can help you fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly. But how?

Primarily, bedtime meditations are about relaxation. By promoting calmness before you go to sleep, bedtime meditation can reduce insomnia and other sleep problems. Meditation triggers a “relaxation response,” which helps you move your body and brain from flight-or-fight mode (which we experience during the day) to rest mode. In this state, we are able to lower our heart rate and slow our breathing—both signs of rest and relaxation.

Relaxation also combats stress, which is closely tied to many sleep disorders. “The specific science backed benefits depend on the type of meditation you're practicing, but meditation has been shown to decrease amygdala activity, which is a part of the brain that is involved in stress and fear responses,” explains Megan Monahan, meditation expert.

By guiding your focus to any tension you feel in your body and any racing thoughts that are contributing to your stress, bedtime meditation readies your whole self for sleep.

Getting Started With Bedtime Meditation

The great thing about bedtime meditation is that anyone can start at anytime. Monahan suggests a certain type of meditation to get you ready for sleep. “I generally don't recommend my clients use most tradition meditation practices (mantra especially) to fall asleep because they'll more likely end up falling asleep when they use that practice during waking hours,” she explains.

“I really like using yoga nidra meditation to aid in falling asleep, as you still get the benefits even if you end up drifting into a fully asleep state," she says.

There are a few different types of bedtime meditations to try:

• Body scanning—this involves focusing on one body part at a time to identify tension and acknowledge how your body is feeling.
• Visualization—you might imagine that a relaxing and comforting blue light is emanating from your chest, slowly covering your entire body; or you might visualize that you are lying in a sunny field, warm and comfortable. Choose images that make you feel happy, content, and restful.
• Breathwork—counted breathing and purposeful breathing (like breathing in through your nostrils for 4 and breathing out of your mouth for 8) can let your body know that it is safe to relax and make you feel calmer and more ready for sleep.
• Progressive muscle relaxation—you might start at your toes and consciously try to relax each muscle as you travel up your body, or you might tense and relax muscles rhythmically to release stress.

Guided Bedtime Meditations

Guided meditations—or meditations that walk you through what you’re supposed to be thinking about and doing with your body—are especially helpful for beginners, who might not know what exactly works for them just yet, but they can benefit anybody. 

Guided bedtime meditations can walk you through:

• Focusing on breath (to help you relax your body and mind)
• Focusing on the present moment (to combat the stress of the day)
• Body scanning (to identify areas of your body where you are holding tension)
• Visualizations (to encourage relaxation and comfort)
• Calming mantras (to help ease your brain out of anxiety and into quiet rest)

It’s easy to find guided bedtime meditations on platforms like YouTube, or through podcast or audiobook resources. There are also lots of meditation and mindfulness apps—like Headspace, Calm, or The Mindfulness App—that specifically teach meditation and provide hundreds of guided meditations for a small monthly fee or, in some cases, for free.

These apps also sometimes feature “sleep stories,” or stories that are specifically designed to lull you off to sleep. There’s tons of content out there!

Mindfulness Techniques for Sleep

There are easy ways to make your bedtime meditation successful, even if you're a beginner.

First of all, try to practice daily. The more you practice your mindfulness, the better it will work for you. 

Start winding down a few hours before bed—limit your screen time and set a nightly bedtime routine. This will let your body and mind know that it is time to start relaxing, and consistency is key.

At the same time, don’t force it. Putting pressure on yourself to sleep when you’re not sleepy can cause even more stress. If you’re not falling asleep right away or within a reasonable (read: comfortable) amount of time, get out of bed and try a mindfulness meditation or do some quiet reading, then go back to bed.

Acknowledge where you are. If you know what kinds of tension you are holding onto, focus on that. Maybe you had an especially stressful day at work—let yourself off the hook if you’re having a particularly tough time falling asleep after that. Sleep might be the second or third (or fourth or fifth) step in your mindfulness and bedtime meditation, and that’s ok. Whatever gets you there is good enough.

Monahan has some tips and tricks for successful mindfulness techniques, including “using your senses to help aid in your ability to relax.” For example:

• Use essential oils like lavender or chamomile 
• Have neutral colors in your bedroom that are calming and grounding
• Listen to instrumental music or nature sounds
• Limit screen time (everyone's favorite suggestion!)

Incorporating Bedtime Meditation into Your Routine

Setting up and maintaining a bedtime meditation routine is imperative to its success. Here are a few suggestions as to how to do that.

Tips for Establishing a Consistent Bedtime Meditation Practice

First of all, have a set bedtime. This consistency will help your body and mind learn that when the clock strikes that number, it’s time to wind down for sleep.

Set your alarm for the next day a few hours before bedtime and put your phone aside at the same time every night.

Find the meditation that works best for you. This might take some trial and error. Try out things like mantras, body scanning, and visualization to figure out what puts you most at ease.

Be patient with yourself. You’re not going to fix your sleep problems overnight (pun intended). Practice makes perfect—the more you practice your bedtime meditation, the more effective it will be.

Overcoming Common Challenges and Obstacles

You might need some reminders set up when you’re just starting your meditation practice to get the hang of it. You can set alarms to remind you to start winding down, to stop looking at your phone, and to go to bed until it becomes routine.

Don’t beat yourself up for not being able to fall asleep and/or stay asleep right away. It takes time to build a habit. Practicing consistently will inevitably make things easier.

Other Strategies for Better Sleep

There are many things you can do to improve your bedtime meditation practice—even some things during the day that you wouldn’t necessarily associate with better sleep.

Sleep Hygiene Practices to Support Bedtime Meditation

A consistent bedtime is the first step towards better sleep. This teaches your body and brain that this is the time to relax and prepare for sleep.

Don’t stay in bed for hours if you aren’t falling asleep. Get up and do something else for a while until you get sleepy. This will help your mind associate your bed with sleeping and nothing else.

Create a good sleep environment. For most people, this means a dark, cool, and quiet place. 

Lifestyle Changes That Can Enhance Sleep Quality

There are things you can do outside of your bedtime meditation routine to help yourself sleep better. 

Diet is very important to good, healthy sleep. Eating less junk and staying away from caffeine, even during the day, can affect the quality of your sleep.

Exercise is also important. Exercising regularly has been shown to help you stay asleep longer and improve sleep disorders like insomnia and sleep apnea.

Pain management and stress management are two other keys to good sleep. Trying to go to bed when you’re in pain or very stressed makes falling asleep that much more difficult. Attacking these problems during the day—with other types of meditation, with therapy, or even with medication—will make them less noticeable and distracting when you’re in bed later trying to fall asleep.

Final Thoughts

Starting a bedtime meditation practice can help you fall asleep sooner, stay asleep longer, and improve the quality of your sleep. It’s easy to begin and helpful resources abound. So the next time you reach for your phone to do a little midnight doomscrolling, try a body scan or a soothing visualization instead.