What Is Night Meditation: How To Practice It?

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What Is Night Meditation?

Night meditation is when you meditate at night in order to fall asleep. It’s a great way to induce deep sleep and is a natural and side-effect free practice. If you meditate regularly, you enjoy a variety of long-term health benefits as well. Night meditation is ideal for your sleep because of several reasons that help your sleep. There are various ways to practice it and make it a part of your daily routine.

Does Night Meditation Improve Sleep?

Researchers aren’t sure why meditating promotes sleep, although there might be a variety of factors. Meditation has been shown to relieve stress, and it may be especially beneficial when a person is having difficulty going asleep due to worry. Meditation and mindfulness training assist people in noticing their thoughts without becoming engrossed in them, allowing them to separate from their thoughts long enough to fall asleep.

Meditation may also enhance sleep directly, even in persons who are not under stress or in discomfort. Whether you are worried or not, meditation can generate a relaxation response, which may aid in the preparation for sleep. Meditation causes changes in brain activity, which continue over into sleep.

How to practice meditation before sleep

1. Guided meditations
2. Calming music
3. Breathing exercises

1. Guided meditation

If you are looking to improve your sleep and sleep faster, guided night meditation is your answer. Find an app that works for you and listen to guided audio that helps you fall asleep. Guided sleep meditations are known to switch off your mind and body, allowing you to relax and feel balanced. Moreover, since it is guided, you need not do anything but listen. Night meditation will lull you into a deep sleep rather than have you tossing and turning at night. Guided sleep meditations include sleep stories or different guided audios with proven techniques to help you sleep at night. Evolve’s joyful guided audios follow proven techniques used by experts to help you fall asleep faster, switch off the day and sleep with a smile!

2. Calming music

Calming music induces you into a state of deep sleep. This is because listening to calming music helps you relax, wind down and allows your brain to switch off. Put on sounds of the rain, waves of the ocean or the forest. With these songs playing in the background, you can settle down, focus on your breath and meditate away. These sounds are known to create restful sleep and hence, help you sleep better. In fact, deep sleep music is good at increasing happiness as well. 

3. Breathing exercises

The simplest way to practice night meditation is via breathing exercises. Manipulating your breathing via breathing exercises helps slow down your heart rate, activate your parasympathetic nervous system (which is responsible for slowing down your body when sleepy), and help your mind and body wind down for the night. It helps start your sleep cycle as well. One of the simplest ways to practice breathing is:

• Lay down on your bed, get comfortable and slowly focus on your breathing.
• Don’t alter your breathing rate, but just notice how your chest expands and contracts with every breath you take.
• Focus on your breathing and every time a thought enters your mind, acknowledge it and go back to your breathing.

If you’d prefer a breathing technique or exercise, box breathing, belly breathing and 4-7-8 breathing are equally effective. Try listening to Evolve’s guided sleep audios, which include all these breathing techniques, so you can enjoy a restful sleep.

Night meditation is a great practice to help your sleep. It helps you switch off for the day, slows down your mind and body and allows you to sleep with happy thoughts. Moreover, meditation helps reduce stress. As a result, you wake up the next morning you feel refreshed and relaxed, ready to seize the day! Try meditation for sleep, anger or anxiety to understand its varied benefits and how you can practice it!

Evolve’s guided audios help you fall asleep faster and improve your sleep quality as well! The Evolve app is now live globally on Android & Apple for free.