What is meditation
Meditation is a series of psychological exercises for relaxation and stress relief, or a special mental state, to achieve which a series of special exercises or practices are used. Meditative methods are based on controlling the human psyche using concentration or will.
Meditation techniques come from Eastern religious culture. The word comes from the Latin meditatio - “to ponder”, “to mentally contemplate”, “to develop ideas”.
Having mastered the practice of meditation, a person becomes positive and nothing can negatively affect his mood.
Shake up your creativity
A relaxed mind is a creative mind. If you fill your brain every night with stories, lessons, tales, possibilities and wonderful discoveries, you develop your imagination. Your brain becomes more inventive, original and creative. Experts in the psychology of reading, such as Keith E. Stanovich of the University of Toronto, believe there are several habits that are so beneficial for children.
Reading helps children improve their cultural awareness, vocabulary and expressive skills. Not only that, it helps them develop abstract thinking.
wallup.net
Causes of sleep problems
Sleep disturbance in adults occurs for various reasons. These are diseases of the cardiovascular system, digestive disorders.
Sleep problems in women.
More often than not, a person is deprived of proper rest due to:
- psycho-emotional stress;
- conflicts in everyday life, at work;
- worries about past events;
- lack of daily routine;
- overeating, low physical activity.
The meditative technique will relieve the treatment of insomnia with sleeping pills, bring calm and give vital energy.
Reading improves your mental resistance
Even though we still don't have a cure for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, we do know one thing. It is possible to train the brain to be stronger and more resistant to mental disorders.
One way to do this is to read. Reading before bed is even better because it further optimizes your brain processes. You will cope better with stress, sleep better, stimulate your memory, mental agility, imagination and much more.
woman reading a book and holding a mug of hot beverage
Benefits of meditation before bed
An evening meditation session before going to bed helps you relax, tune in to a sound and restful sleep, free yourself from negative and disturbing thoughts, fall asleep quickly and have good dreams.
Calm
The person becomes calm and gets rid of bad thoughts. This allows you to be distracted and not think about the events of the day - looking for a way out, making plans, your failures.
Restores breathing
During meditation, the muscles relax, breathing becomes even and deep. The lungs and circulatory system are saturated with oxygen.
Breathing after meditation is restored.
Energy boost in the morning
An evening meditation session allows you to feel in a great mood in the morning, gives you strength and energy.
Put electronics in a drawer and keep pen and paper nearby
Before going to bed, it is advisable to turn off all electronics and put them away. You will need a pen and paper to capture ideas that may arise in the middle of the night. Try to go to bed at the same time so that your body gets used to the routine. If you can't sleep, take a few deep breaths to calm down.
Nourishing and quick: while my husband goes to lunch, I prepare a potato roll with cheese
Refreshing Green Frappuccino with Mint and Matcha Tea
It's all genes: what the granddaughter of the beautiful Shura from “The Ballad of a Soldier” looks like
When you improve your sleep, you will notice changes in your performance. Quality rest affects everything from our motivation to our immune system.
Stages of meditation before bed
Finish everything the day before and have dinner at 7 o’clock. Food should be light.
Before meditation, prepare everything for sleep: take a shower, brush your teeth, make your bed, turn off the TV, phone, radio.
The best time for meditation is from 21 to 22 hours.
Meditation - getting ready for bed.
To do this you need:
- choose a place where no one will interfere or enter the room;
- take the appropriate pose;
- close eyes;
- take several breaths and breaths;
- listen to the sounds around you;
- focus on the session.
Enter the state slowly and smoothly, preferably exit faster.
Recommendations for preparation
Conduct classes with a specialist or at home. A beginner will not be able to enter a meditative state right away. After a few lessons, he will be able not to be distracted by extraneous thoughts and focus on the main thing.
Position
To meditate, lie down or take a lotus position, sit cross-legged. Keep your spine and shoulders straight, palms open. You can lean on the wall.
Breath
Breathe evenly so that inhalation and exhalation are of the same duration. Pause for 2 seconds between them.
You need to breathe evenly.
Attention
Don't think about the bad, concentrate on something pleasant.
Environment
A person should be surrounded by his favorite interior items - textiles, paintings, flowers.
Situation
Before meditation, ventilate the room, dim the lights: light candles, turn on the floor lamp. Avoid loud sounds.
Types of Meditation Techniques for Sleep
For a restful and healthy sleep, you can choose one of several effective techniques.
Soothing music
Turn on soft music of oriental motifs or sounds - the sound of a waterfall, the chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves, the murmur of water. Do not wear headphones, otherwise you will not be able to relax.
Boat
It is easy to achieve relaxation if you imagine yourself in a boat floating with the flow. The procedure is carried out with an open window or in the fresh air.
After taking a lying pose, close your eyes. Then imagine being in a boat that moves along the waves of a river or sea, surrounded by light fog. Nearby you can hear the singing of birds, the splash of water, and feel the splash of waves.
Imagine yourself in a boat.
When you feel drowsy, do everything in reverse order, open your eyes and go to bed.
Mantras
Take the lotus position and quietly read the chosen mantra to yourself. It is allowed to listen to the audio recording for the first training sessions.
Mental teleportation
To do this, imagine a pleasant, peaceful place - a starry sky, a sunset on the seashore, a forest, a country house, a beach, an armchair by the fireplace, a mountain top. Audio recordings of natural sounds will help.
Imagine the beauty of the starry sky.
Development of concentration
The technique is to remember the events of the past day and leave completed tasks in it. Those that need to be completed are moved to the next day. Conflicts with others need to be pulled out of oneself, erased from memory. Close the door to the past day forever and prepare to meet the new.
Falling asleep quickly
First, lie on your back, put a pillow under your head, relax and remain in this position for several minutes. Then tense your muscles for 15 seconds and suddenly relax. If there is no result, strain and relax the muscles in turn.
Place a pillow under your head.
Autotraining
Convince yourself that you are on the beach and your fingertips lie in warm sea water. As the tide comes in, the water reaches your ankles, calves, knees, thighs, stomach and entire body. Then she leaves and takes away the fatigue and worries experienced during the day. You can listen to pleasant, relaxing music.
Before the session, write on paper a text containing several points:
- My body is relaxed, I feel that fatigue is leaving and leaving a pleasant warmth.
- Negative thoughts and worries leave me.
- Thoughts move slowly, they fall asleep.
The words can be anything. The prefix “not” should be excluded from the text.
Hypnosis
Meditation uses hypnotic elements of suggestion: online practice or self-hypnosis.
Technique:
- concentrate, turn on your imagination, say a special text quietly;
- Hearing your own voice, go into a trance.
Self-hypnosis is a special state.
A specialist will help beginners master hypnosis.
Mental reincarnation
During the session, try to imagine yourself as your favorite animal, natural phenomenon, or water stream. Do this gradually, mentally embodying yourself in a different image and plunging inside your consciousness.
Figurative relaxation
The technique requires fluidity. Here you can use your imagination: imagine jets of water or ocean waves that can relieve stress. The flow can be airy, diffuse, colored or transparent.
Imagine ocean waves.
Then imagine soft warmth, pleasant coolness, slight tingling or tickling. The next step: the waves gradually envelop the entire body, which merges with them. After drowsiness appears, imagine that the flow is quickly leaving.
Speaking in a foreign language
Speak for 15 minutes in any language. The words spoken may not make sense. There is no need to understand what you hear, this way your consciousness will turn off faster. Sleep will be deep and effective.
Dreamer
To do this, stretch out on the bed and dream about something pleasant. You can imagine yourself on green grass: the sun is nearing sunset, a light wind blows across your body. After a while, you can relax and fall asleep.
Imagine yourself on green grass.
Abdominal breathing
Lying in bed, place your hands on your stomach. While breathing with your belly, your palms should move. Watch your hands and try not to think about anything. With regular sessions you will be able to achieve a meditative state.
Descending breath
In bed, with the lights off, inhale with your stomach, hold your breath for a few seconds and exhale. Repeat 2-3 times. Then imagine yourself at the top of the stairs. Exhaling, go down 1 step. You can combine descending and abdominal breathing.
Imagine yourself at the top of the stairs.
Color Breath
To do this, imagine that the air has color. Inhale the yellow stream and exhale, then do the same with lilac and continue with other favorite colors.
Conscious Meditation
It is recommended to conduct the session in bed with the lights off.
To achieve the result you should:
- Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth 5 times. Imagine that air is passing through the lungs and respiratory tract. At the moment of exhalation, mentally throw away worries and anxieties.
- Continue to breathe slowly. When negative thoughts, irritating factors, sounds appear, first let them in, then exhale.
- When the worries go away, focus on your body, analyze the sensations along the body - from the top of your head to your fingertips.
- Return to breathing, air circulation throughout the body.
- Remember and analyze the events of the past day within 3 minutes.
- Return to your body and try to “disconnect”, starting from the little toe of your left foot. First relax the left half of the body, then the right.
This meditation technique is difficult for beginners, but effective.
Improved empathy
Raymond Mar, a psychologist at York University in Canada, believes that reading helps us be more empathetic. He has done more research on this topic than anyone else in his field. He argues that novels and stories provide a unique opportunity to develop this potential. We identify with the characters and suffer, laugh and love with them.
This all leaves its mark on us. He invites us to improve our ability to empathize. Likewise (as strange as it may seem), reading before bed further enhances these benefits. Before going to bed, we pay more attention to what we read. Consequently, we are more focused and able to capture these emotions and they come to life in our brain.
