The words mindfulness and meditation can get thrown around a lot as buzzwords. But what do they actually mean, and what do they look like in practice?
We’ve compiled a few of our favorite mindfulness and meditation exercises that can help you re-center yourself, leading to a heightened state of calm. This can help you out both when you’re awake and just before falling asleep on your Milton mattress.
How Mindfulness Can Help
Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing your awareness on the present moment.
You can do so by calmly acknowledging and accepting your feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations. It helps you increase your focus and give you more self-compassion.
Overall, it's therapeutic and allows you to focus more on the current situation. The most common technique is mindful observation.
Choose a natural object from within your immediate environment and focus on watching it for a minute or two. This could be a flower, the moon, your bed, etc.
Focusing solely on what’s in front of you can be useful for people who find themselves caught up in worrying about the past or what might happen in the future. This can lead to better rest because it allows you to calm your mind and drift off.
You Can Meditate to Sleep
Meditation is a therapeutic exercise you can do to better align your mind and your body. Meditation can produce a deep state of relaxation and a tranquil headspace.
Anyone can meditate. You don't have to be a monk sitting like the woman in the photo above.
During meditation, you focus your attention and eliminate the stream of jumbled thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress.
All you need to do is to try to focus solely on your breathing as you gently inhale through your nose, into your belly, and out through your mouth.
Your thoughts are going to wander and that's fine. Don't worry about actually clearing your mind. That's almost impossible. Every time your mind gets off-track and you start thinking about work or the drive tomorrow or the kid that was annoying you, go back to focusing on your breathing until you fall asleep.
Meditation and mindfulness often go hand in hand, as they allow you to react to the external world in a more thoughtful way by first gaining control of your internal thoughts.
Combine Mindfulness & Meditation to Sleep Easier
By practicing mindfulness on a regular basis, you can train your mind to refocus easier and give yourself the ability to be kind and forgiving to yourself.
And, when you add meditation in if you're having trouble sleeping, you're bound to be able to close your eyes and drift off to dreamland – because you'll be able to focus on your breathing and forgive yourself for not being able to fall asleep immediately.