Sometimes all it takes to get a decent night’s sleep is finding a technique to persuade your body and mind to simply quiet down. Sleep meditations are a particularly effective technique to accomplish that. According to research, doing mindfulness meditation regularly may enhance the quality of your sleep. 

To-do lists, worries, and general discomforts have an unpleasant tendency of popping up in our life just before bedtime. 

Fortunately, there are many natural treatments that can help calm racing thoughts, which only get worse when the lights go out. 

When complete relaxation is what you seek, breathing becomes your most valuable ally. 

Since breathing into the diaphragm can activate the vagus nerve, which starts your body’s parasympathetic reaction, taking deeper, more regulated breaths can be enough to drop your cortisol levels.

In a 2008 study it was shown that by using breath-based mind-body relaxation techniques, older persons with chronically high blood pressure were able to reduce their SBP by an average of 9.4 points over the course of eight weeks.

 A different study published in Psychoneuroendocrinology discovered that merely 25 minutes a day for three days of mindful meditation controlled participants’ cortisol response and decreased self-reported psychological stress.

 An overview of five meditation techniques is provided here, so you can use the power of your breath to unwind and fall asleep more quickly.

Use an app for guided meditation 

Apps for your phone like Headspace, Calm, and Insight can be a great resource if you’re new to mindful meditation. 

They can help you improve your mental health and form new habits, like breath work, that will lead to a healthier you. 

Many of them also include guided meditations that are intended to reduce tension and promote relaxation. 

You can listen to a lengthier workout to relax before bed or you can complete the shorter, five-minute exercises quickly when your stress reaction is aroused.

Decide on a mantra for bedtime

If you’re a more seasoned practitioner of meditation, set a challenge for yourself to stop using the app and create your own stress-relieving mantra. 

Find a sentence that makes you feel at ease, such as “I am in control of my destiny” or “I do not let outside triggers affect my inner self.” 

Use your intuition to find this phrase. Whatever your mantra, repeat it with each inhale to control your breathing and block out any remaining concerns that may arise during your wind-down exercise.

Exhale more slowly than you inhale.

Breath work entails making adjustments to your breathing to maximise its therapeutic benefits. 

There are countless methods and exercises for doing this. However breathwork specialist Ashley Neese swears by inhaling deeply through the nose for a lengthy time and then exhaling for two to three counts afterward. 

You should start to relax as a result in no more than 60 seconds. She claims that your thoughts will grow quieter as you breathe more slowly.

Try a 2:1:4:1 breath ratio

Functional medicine doctor and founder of Parsley Health Robin Berzin, M.D., suggests breathing for two counts, holding the breath for one. Softly exhale for four counts, and then hold your breath once more for one.

She advises lengthening the breath to four in and six out, or six in and eight out, etc. if the two-to-four count feels too short. 

She cautions us, “But there is no need to push yourself if lengthier breaths cause any concern. 

Play around with various combinations of inhales and exhales until you find the pattern that, in the end, makes you feel the most relaxed and at ease.

Incorporate some visualisation 

Another effective strategy to manage tension and discomfort is to incorporate visualisation into your breath work routine. 

Your body may eventually relax if you simply imagine being more at ease. 

Grace Smith, a hypnotherapist, frequently uses visualisation when dealing with clients. 

She advises people to think of stress as a physical creature and to kindly ask it to leave their lives so that more flow can occur. 

Then, she instructs you to consider your replacement carefully. As a result, if you want to increase your creativity, visualise a fountain.

 “I love visualising a fountain or a tap turning on—one that continues to flow and flow and flow with ideas. All you have to do is load up your bucket, transport

Simply fill up your pail, bring it to your workplace or studio, and follow these new insights. 

Imagine being able to simply and effortlessly access fresh ideas and carry them out while still being compassionate to yourself,” she says.

The takeaway 

Expect to take some time to get the hang of these tactics because, like most things, they require practise. 

Set aside some time each day to practise; consider it as assembling your relaxation toolkit so you’ll be more prepared to face a stressful situation the next time it occurs. 

The first guideline is to be polite to yourself and to acknowledge your accomplishments.