10 ways meditating before bed can change your life for the better
For the past few decades, we’ve all been living at a breakneck pace – both us and the world around us. We are besieged on all sides by project deadlines, traffic jams, drivers trying to get to their destinations as quickly as possible, stress around every corner, and a clear, minute-by-minute schedule that somehow has to be followed.
The consequence of all of this is an almost constant state of stress on our bodies, a state that has an extremely negative impact on our lives – both awake and asleep.
Fortunately, we can help ourselves to avoid many of the consequences of this lifestyle, and at the same time enrich our lives both mentally and physically, by practicing bedtime meditation. But can it really help us that much? Yes, yes, and yes again!
In this article, we’ve compiled a few benefits of meditating before bed that may well come as a complete surprise to you! So, meditation before bed….
1. Reduces stress levels in your body.
When you meditate, it helps you “reset” and activate your autonomic nervous system. You are telling your body that at least until morning, you don’t have to run or rush anywhere and you can afford to relax, getting out of the survival mode that constantly fills your mind with stress.
Dr. Herbert Benson, director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine, even believes that this kind of meditation is one of the few ways people can consciously engage the body’s “built-in” relaxation mechanism to help you fight stress. In other words, meditating before bed helps you get into a state that prevents you from accumulating new stress and gets rid of the stress you’ve already accumulated.
2. Brings you a sense of peacefulness.
When we finally lay our head on the pillow at the end of a busy day, we often use the time just before bed to think again about what happened to you that day – usually focusing on what went wrong.
And we also use this time to worry about the future, savoring all the things that could go wrong. But proper meditation before bed helps you focus on the present. It helps you chase away all the worries that poison your mind and fill it with calm and peace instead of the former chaos.
3. Helps you get rid of insomnia
The results of a study conducted by the University of Massachusetts Medical School showed that meditation before bedtime is in many cases more effective than all other sleep tips combined. For example, approximately 58% of participants found that meditation significantly improved and strengthened their sleep, and of those who had previously had to take medication to fall asleep, approximately 91% were able to get a good night’s sleep without any medication!
Meditating before bedtime allows your brain to switch to the waves corresponding to a relaxed state and to dampen the beta waves responsible for active thinking. In this way, meditation helps our brains drift into deeper, fuller, more restful, sound sleep.
4. reduces the feeling of fatigue
When we don’t sleep well, we simply don’t feel rested enough the next day. When we don’t get enough sleep, it ruins our entire next day, making us less able to work and constantly feeling tired.
That’s why it’s so important to incorporate meditation before bedtime into our routine if we’re feeling tired all the time. Meditation helps our bodies increase melatonin production and also increases the REM phase of sleep, which helps us feel energized in the morning and maintain that feeling throughout the day.
5. Improves mood
Lack of sleep and constant stress are far from the best for our mental health, bringing our depression and anxiety “to the surface”. Since meditation helps us get better sleep and focus on the present rather than the past or future, for many people, meditating before bed becomes an effective way to feel more energized and happier throughout the day.
6. Contributes to the prevention of many diseases
In today’s society, lack of sleep is somehow not considered harmful or dangerous, nor is it commonly talked about. However, lack of sleep and the stress associated with it are inextricably linked to an increased risk of many diseases, including cancer, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. And the fact that meditation helps you get better sleep and promotes calmness greatly reduces this risk.
7. Improves digestion
Stress and excessive busyness, among other things, lead to digestive problems and everything that goes along with them. But when we help our body “reset” our autonomic nervous system with meditation, the digestive system starts working much better and more efficiently, making us happier and healthier.
8. Lowers blood pressure
One of the reasons meditation before bedtime promotes calm and relaxation is that it helps lower blood pressure and slow your heart rate.
9. Relieves pain
Inflammatory processes are responsible for many unpleasant sensations in our body, and one of them is pain. Since meditation helps to lessen the intensity of inflammatory processes at the cellular level, those who meditate frequently often find that their lives have become much less painful.
Moreover, in some clinical trials, more than 50% of participants reported that just starting to meditate significantly reduced the pain they were experiencing.
10. Helps the body maintain hormonal balance
Our hormones are responsible for almost every process in our bodies, from how much we eat to our libido, and when hormone balance is disrupted, the consequence is a host of unpleasant side effects. But by meditating before bed, you help your hormonal balance come back to normal, bringing balance back to both your body and your mind.
You may think that all of the above benefits of meditating before bed sound too good to be true. However… why not give it a try? You don’t even have to start with long term meditations. Start small, for example, with five minutes, and gradually progress to ten and fifteen.
Yes, you may think that by evening you are so tired that even fifteen minutes of meditation may be an unacceptable luxury for you, but if you think about it, what do you have to lose?