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People often ask me can meditation replace sleep? Unfortunately, the answer is no. However, meditation can be used to overcome stress and help yousleep more deeply. 
Christian meditation emphasizes a focus on God's presence and self-awareness to rid the mind of stress. Therefore, meditating prior to bedtime can help prepare your mind and body for sleep and get control of stressful thinking.
How Meditation Helps You to Reduce Stress and Fall Asleep
An analogy to understand how meditation works to help you sleep better, is driving a car. If you want to stop the car and turn off the engine, you first need to downshift or press the breaks. Similarly, if you want to "stop your thoughts" and get a good night's rest, you have to shift your brain into an alpha state. Shifting your brain into alpha states starts the process of “powering down,” or coming into a rest state with slower, restorative brain-wave activity.
Meditating to go to sleep helps your brain downshift and go into an alpha wave state. When you meditate to go to sleep, you are consciously entering a sleep state and therefore stilling the waves of your consciousness. Meditating activates the relaxation response because meditation usually begins by breathing deeply and becoming aware of what you are sensing in your body.
The relaxation response is responsible for balancing the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, as well as the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Your brain changes from beta, an awakened state with a lot of brain activity, to alpha, a more relaxed state, during this phase. The mood-regulating hormone serotonin is released in alpha, which relaxes you. People who spend less time in the alpha brainwave state are more anxious than people who spend more time in the alpha brainwave state.
How to Use Meditation to Reduce Stress and Fall Asleep
If you have never tried meditation before, it can seem overwhelming, strange, or even boring. Starting a meditation practice will feel uncomfortable at first, but once you have seen the benefits for yourself, you ll be singing its praises. Meditating is similar to strengthening a muscle. The more you use it, the less difficult it becomes.
Below are three simple steps on how to meditate in bed for beginners, so that you can reduce stress and sleep well.
Step 1. Commit to the Practice- The first and most critical step is to decide to meditate. Since meditation becomes simpler with practice, it is critical to make a commitment to using it. It may seem odd at first, but persevere.
Step 2: Decide which form of meditation is best for you- Mindfulness, concentration, and guided meditation are the three main forms of meditation.
Mindfulness meditation is focusing on how God is right there with you. In mindfulness meditation, you become aware of your breath, how you feel inside your body, how your body is functioning in the moment and God's presence. The goal during mindful meditation is to replace any wandering thoughts with mindfulness of what your body is experiencing and how God will never leave you.
Concentration meditation is focused on a word, thought, phrase, or Bible verse. This meditation may include repeating a mantra audibly or inside your mind. You can check out this post for a few great Bible verses to focus on when you have trouble sleeping.
Guided meditation includes listening to an audio that helps guide you into stress relief and sleep. The instructor may focus on physical aspects of your body or may share a story and guide you through the details. You can download a self-guided meditation here and record yourself reading it out-loud. The end product should be about 10 minutes long. If you don't want to record yourself reading the meditation you can download our recording of this mediation for a minimum gift of 99cents or more by visiting our Gumroad Store.
We also recommend an app called Abide because it helps you practice meditation from a Christian perspective. While some people say that 10 minutes of meditation is equal to 4 hours of sleep, we still recommend getting a full 6-8 hours of sleep.
Step 3. Extend the length of meditation until you experience relief- You may not be able to meditate for too long at first. That's perfectly natural. Stress has a way of overcoming intentions and causing thoughts to drift. Don't be too hard on yourself or think that you're not doing anything correctly. You will train your wandering mind to concentrate on your meditation practice over time, bringing rest and calm to your sleep.
Meditation is an excellent method for managing tension during the day. It's particularly beneficial before bedtime if stress is robbing you of sleep. Find a meditation style that works for you and commit to trying it for a month and you’ll discover an amazing ability to regulate your thoughts and enjoy restful sleep.
About the Author:
Corine Williams, Ph.D. is Clinical Psychologist that is currently seeing clients in the States of Maryland, New Jersey, and New York. You can find out more about her practice by visiting www.therapyforchristians.com/corinewilliams. In addition to providing individual therapy, Dr. Williams is also passionate about writing books and designing merch that educate, uplift, and normalize mental health subjects in the Christian community. You can find out more about her at www.booksbycorine.com or by visiting her amazon profile here: https://www.amazon.com/Corine-Hyman/e/B00AWZ5FL2
Help us increase mental health awareness in the Christian community by donating through our paypal link here: www.paypal.com/therapyforchristians, joining our mailing list by clicking below, or join our provider list here: Provider listing
Disclaimer: the information, including but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material contained on this article are for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you are looking for a Christian counselor near you, please check out our directory located here: Christians Therapist Near Me
