Meditations for insomnia?

ClayTheScribe

I have chronic, never-ending, every night insomnia where I can't fall asleep without large, large doses of sleeping medicine or Nighty Night tea. I also take melatonin and do the right things of turning everything off an hour before, not going to sleep until 3 hours after a meal, no caffeine or sugar late in the day, exercising and meditating. I think part of the reason my insomnia has become worse in the past few months is because of on-going anxiety about my future and switching careers and the logistics of making enough money while going back to school, etc. Some of this is out of my hands and even though I can push it to the back of my mind I think it lingers in my subconscious/unconscious. I wanted to know if anyone knew any meditations I could do before bed that wouldn't make me more awake and that would encourage deeper relaxation. I also suck at relaxing for the most part, I think my meditation style is still very stiff and rigid.

Glow

When I was doing Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, I would always fall asleep while trying to do the body scan meditation before bed, lol. The CD I used was of Jon Kabat-Zinn, but here is the exact same meditation guided by one of his colleagues:



Edit: The first meditation in the video below (read by Kabat-Zinn) is similar to the one I have. See whose voice/recording you prefer, and practice the meditation each night for about two weeks and see if it helps:

BhanteLucky

I recall that the Buddha did a teaching on body awareness to help a monk sleep, but I can't find a link.
So the videos provided by Glow are in line with that. :thumbsup:

Dakini

There are self-hypnosis books you can get for insomnia. I've heard from a few people they work pretty well. Meditation is a type of self-hypnosis. It's all in the same ball park. You could check on Amazon.

lobster

I would agree with yoga nidra or hypnosis for insomnia as a good source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga-nidra



Hatha Yoga and tai chi will also help your relaxation and sleep. Some exercise can give you energy and vitality, so make sure you do vigorous exercise in the morning and the internal exercises before sleep.

Yoga breathing
http://yogainspires.co.uk/how-to-get-a-good-nights-sleep-without-drugs/

I have not tried these mantra but . . . worth trying . . .
http://www.spiritvoyage.com/blog/index.php/3-mantras-to-help-insomnia/

meditation advice
http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/meditation-and-insomnia

:thumbsup:

ThailandTom

It is not exactly a meditation as such but I have insomnia from time to time, I had it last night but that was because I just felt like staying up and went for a crazy bike ride at 5am as well. But if I want to sleep and can't, first I make sure that there is as little as possible in the room. Then I make sure I can make things as quiet as I can within my means. Then if you can make things a little cooler than they are at that moment in time, maybe have a cool shower or put on the fan or aircon. When it comes to getting into bed I lay in my favourite position and I take deep long breaths for about a minute. This brings in a lot of oxygen and my eyes usually become heavy from this alone. Then I concentrate on my breath as if I were meditating but laying down, often I will slip into a sleep. Hope this helps.

chela

I actually have found that my sleeping issues have been mostly resolved since I reduced my anxiety. I don't know that I'm doing anything different than you, though. I would ask you how often you meditate, and for how long (you should strive for daily meditation). Also, do you do mindful exercises frequently throughout the day? What I mean is, you can stop doing whatever you're doing and focus on your breath and do a sort of open-eyed mini-meditation for even just 3 minutes frequently throughout the day. You can also do this when you are doing what are commonly thought of as mindless activities, such as cleaning up the house, folding laundry, walking, waiting at the bus stop, etc. Have you tried meditation before going to bed, maybe for about 20 minutes? You talk about going to school and working-- it sounds like you must be very busy and struggling to keep it going. This is a recipe for anxiety and thus, sleep issues. Is there any way you can slow things down? Can you work less or take less classes? Even if not, my advice is to find ways to slow down-- use the mindfulness exercises to help you stay focused and grounded on each activity, and try not to do too much multi-tasking.

Dakini

Clay, I just remembered that one of our members posted a recording of a Neuro-Linguistic Programming tape for inducing sleep. I found it quite effective! The name of the thread was: Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Or Neurolinguistic Programming. Posted by Sagat, I think. I don't see the search window, but maybe you could find it by Googling NewBuddhist and the thread title.

EnriqueSpain

lobster said:

I would agree with yoga nidra or hypnosis for insomnia as a good source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga-nidra



Hatha Yoga and tai chi will also help your relaxation and sleep. Some exercise can give you energy and vitality, so make sure you do vigorous exercise in the morning and the internal exercises before sleep.

Yoga breathing
http://yogainspires.co.uk/how-to-get-a-good-nights-sleep-without-drugs/

I have not tried these mantra but . . . worth trying . . .
http://www.spiritvoyage.com/blog/index.php/3-mantras-to-help-insomnia/

meditation advice
http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/meditation-and-insomnia

:thumbsup:

Great source of relaxation, apart from others mentioned, not forgetting using a little bit SOTO ZEN style BELLS- really any kind of metal bell you like;
that combined with an effort to think as less as possible on problems out of your hand, and doing the BEST in everything else on which we have some POWER, will surely improve situation.

Also, focusing on all the other positive aspects still present in your life, to balance all the downsides there are always in human life.

Apart from occasional assistance from Naturopathy Doctors or Western Medicine doctors, the WILL to diminish the heavy weight and influence of life's dramas and challenges on YOU is the key to overcome it.

Good luck and how kind are those helping others and listening to them!
Enri

ClayTheScribe

EnriqueSpain said:

lobster said:

I would agree with yoga nidra or hypnosis for insomnia as a good source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga-nidra



Hatha Yoga and tai chi will also help your relaxation and sleep. Some exercise can give you energy and vitality, so make sure you do vigorous exercise in the morning and the internal exercises before sleep.

Yoga breathing
http://yogainspires.co.uk/how-to-get-a-good-nights-sleep-without-drugs/

I have not tried these mantra but . . . worth trying . . .
http://www.spiritvoyage.com/blog/index.php/3-mantras-to-help-insomnia/

meditation advice
http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/meditation-and-insomnia

:thumbsup:

Great source of relaxation, apart from others mentioned, not forgetting using a little bit SOTO ZEN style BELLS- really any kind of metal bell you like;
that combined with an effort to think as less as possible on problems out of your hand, and doing the BEST in everything else on which we have some POWER, will surely improve situation.

Also, focusing on all the other positive aspects still present in your life, to balance all the downsides there are always in human life.

Apart from occasional assistance from Naturopathy Doctors or Western Medicine doctors, the WILL to diminish the heavy weight and influence of life's dramas and challenges on YOU is the key to overcome it.

Good luck and how kind are those helping others and listening to them!
Enri

MUCH easier said than done and that will surely take me YEARS. I need a solution to my insomnia NOW before I go insane, show up late one too many times to work/school and become a zombie because I'm taking too much sleeping medicine.

ClayTheScribe

chela said:

I actually have found that my sleeping issues have been mostly resolved since I reduced my anxiety. I don't know that I'm doing anything different than you, though. I would ask you how often you meditate, and for how long (you should strive for daily meditation). Also, do you do mindful exercises frequently throughout the day? What I mean is, you can stop doing whatever you're doing and focus on your breath and do a sort of open-eyed mini-meditation for even just 3 minutes frequently throughout the day. You can also do this when you are doing what are commonly thought of as mindless activities, such as cleaning up the house, folding laundry, walking, waiting at the bus stop, etc. Have you tried meditation before going to bed, maybe for about 20 minutes? You talk about going to school and working-- it sounds like you must be very busy and struggling to keep it going. This is a recipe for anxiety and thus, sleep issues. Is there any way you can slow things down? Can you work less or take less classes? Even if not, my advice is to find ways to slow down-- use the mindfulness exercises to help you stay focused and grounded on each activity, and try not to do too much multi-tasking.

Here's the funny thing chela. I have got rid of most of my anxiety, literally, through Buddhism, diet, exercise, therapy and especially reiki. I hardly notice the physical manifestations of it anymore and I am more at peace than ever. But my insomnia started getting really bad a few months ago around the time I did reiki work to get rid of most of my anxiety. I was expecting my insomnia to be more manageable, but it's become worse and more stubborn.

No, I can't work less, there's no part-time option in my work and I'm only taking one fairly easy online class. The issue is not my current work/school load, it's manageable and I'm pretty good at my job and don't tend to take worries about to bed. It's all about my future. I'm supposedly going back to grad school in the fall (still haven't got admitted). This means I can't do my full-time job as a journalist, it's too demanding and either work or school would suffer. So I'm going to have to find part-time work. Right now my best prospects are doing reiki (I'm level II practitioner) part-time while I go to school full time in the fall (I'm not going part-time because it's too expensive and takes too long), but I have no solid plans in part because my license is suspended so I can't even get out there to practice. So I'm worried about if I'll get a job or situation where I'll have ample health insurance (I need some form because I'm still on psychiatric medicines and can't just stop taking them), a job that pays me enough, combined with student loans, to keep me in my apartment where I am now and if I'll be able to put this together by the fall. I think each day I move forward without being able to do much action around this, I build up more anxiety. Also this summer I have to take three pre-requisite classes, one is biology and one is statistics. I am not good at math or science at all and am actually re-taking biology this summer because I had to drop it this semester. My idea I had was so quit my full-time job and cash in my 401K (I doubt I'll ever retire), get more student loans to live off, try doing as much reiki I can on the side and focus completely on school because if I don't pass these classes, I can't get into the social work grad program in the fall. Part of me hopes I'm denied admittance so I can give up on my dream of being a social worker and continue as a journalist, which is steady, fairly easy and I am good at it. The problem is, it's not what I really want to be doing in my heart, so I'd suffer there too. Anyway, for the most part I'm able to stay fairly present in my waking world, but when I try to go to sleep it's like I'm too alert or wired up despite meditation (I meditate daily in the morning and at night, the amount at night doesn't seem to make a difference) and tea and shutting things off and relaxing, I can't fall asleep without big doses of sleeping medicine. I suspect what's keeping me up is worries about my future, but, for the most part there's nothing I can do about them for now, they're out of my control. I just need help with staying present and especially so before bed. The other thing is I have sleep apnea so I sleep with a CPAP mask that definitely makes my insomnia worse and I'm trying to lose weight so I don't need it anymore, but it's very slow going and I'm not to where I need to get. Ultimately I want to get to a place where, even if I have to take a bunch of supplements, I don't have to take these psych meds that make me so groggy/oversleep in the morning.

ClayTheScribe

Funny enough as well is that it doesn't seem to matter when I get up or how tired I am. If I get up at 7 a.m. and go to bed at 11 p.m., I may be naturally tired, but it will still be hard for me to fall asleep without lots of Seroquel. Sometimes if I am really tired or exhausted, it's even harder to fall asleep without chemicals. Of course if I get up at 1 p.m. and try to go to bed at 11 p.m. from having overslept the night before, it will be hard. And yes I exercise pretty vigorously 5-6 days a week and avoid most stimulants. I can't figure it out. I'm going to pick up some L-trytophan and try that as well tonight and see if that helps.

shanyin

The Buddha straight up taught that loving kindness meditation helps with sleep, and gives pleasant dreams.

Maybe talk to a teacher about it who teaches it and I fully recommend doing it.

blu3ree

ClayTheScribe said:

I have chronic, never-ending, every night insomnia where I can't fall asleep without large, large doses of sleeping medicine or Nighty Night tea. I also take melatonin and do the right things of turning everything off an hour before, not going to sleep until 3 hours after a meal, no caffeine or sugar late in the day, exercising and meditating. I think part of the reason my insomnia has become worse in the past few months is because of on-going anxiety about my future and switching careers and the logistics of making enough money while going back to school, etc. Some of this is out of my hands and even though I can push it to the back of my mind I think it lingers in my subconscious/unconscious. I wanted to know if anyone knew any meditations I could do before bed that wouldn't make me more awake and that would encourage deeper relaxation. I also suck at relaxing for the most part, I think my meditation style is still very stiff and rigid.

Kriya yoga.
Maybe a habit/work is causing restlessness?
Patience goes along with relaxing.

Add a workout to your routine burning off extra energy.