How I came to meditation
My friend advised me to meditate many years ago, when it was not yet mainstream. But I rejected her advice. First of all, I am a materialist. In my head, meditation was closely connected with all these chakras and energetics, and if I hear the word “energy” in relation to something other than industry, I have questions. Secondly, it seemed to me that this was not for me.
The thought of having to sit in one place for several minutes made me stupefied. I am a somewhat restless person – not anxious, but rather active. With an awl in one place, as grandma always said. Others were less metaphorical and simply asked me to sit still for a second. And I haven’t outgrown it.
For example, I can still run thousands of steps around a tiny apartment a day, even though I seem to have been working on my laptop all day. And no, the pedometer doesn’t lie. I just can’t do it any other way. If the thought suddenly occurs to me that I need to wash the laundry, I need to load it into the machine immediately, otherwise the task will hang in my head and interfere with my work. And sometimes you have to walk from corner to corner in order to think more clearly, because there are so many thoughts that “brain blockage” occurs.
In general, the prospect of sitting in one place for 10-15 minutes, breathing and trying not to jump from one thought to another, really scared me.
Until yoga came into my life – exclusively as physical education, because varied exercise is good for the body. During the classes we mostly twisted and stretched, but sometimes we just breathed, and sometimes we meditated. By that time, research had already appeared on the benefits of meditation, so I approached the question with less skepticism. And there really was a result.
I went to yoga on Saturday morning and it was a great decision. An hour and a half – and it’s like you’ve taken off the shackles of everyday life and are ready to rush into the weekend. It worked so well that I didn’t cancel the class even on busy Saturdays, because I knew that after yoga everything would be easier for me.
Next we have assembly gluing. Five in the morning. With red eyes, I’m trying to pay for a meditation application, using all available “crutches”, because direct payments in the AppStore are impossible for Russians. I haven’t slept well in weeks at this point, so this is my last hope.
Take note 😑
What is my problem with falling asleep and how did I solve it before?
I have always had trouble falling asleep, but in recent years the problem has become widespread. There are many reasons.
Firstly, the evening is a time that belongs only to you, and it’s a pity to end it. That’s why you continue to stay awake, even if it’s clearly time.
Secondly, my friends and parents live in different time zones. They only come home from work when it’s already the dead of night. And I want to communicate in real time.
Thirdly, thoughts don’t go away at night. And it literally happens that I almost fell asleep, but while I was turning over from side to side, I managed to think about something that I shouldn’t forget about, and the sleep disappeared for another couple of hours.
Finally, I have no idea why – I just can’t sleep. Sometimes the body throws strange somersaults.
One day I cried in the middle of the night because I was so tired and sleepy, but I couldn’t sleep.
Of course, one could decide that I am a night owl, and my normal schedule is to go to bed in the morning and get up at noon. Moreover, my colleagues work on Moscow time, and it would be even more convenient. But I’m not a night owl. In general, I am comfortable getting up in any mode, if there is one. If you don’t keep an eye on it, it will fly into the stratosphere, and day and night will be completely confused.
In addition, I want to live according to the same schedule as people in the country where I am, because I need to make friends, go to the store, the bank, and finally, sometimes see the sun, so as not to be blue where it’s summer all year round.
On my way, I have tried, it seems, most of the recommendations from the Internet: warm shower, cold shower, giving up gadgets, dim lighting, moderate physical activity, exhausting physical activity, deep breathing, deep boredom. Just continue the list – I’ve tried it all. In my case, melatonin tablets work great, but they are not available over the counter where I live now.
And here we are again. It’s five in the morning again and I’m trying to pay for an app that Instagram has advertised to me several times*.
How I meditated and what it led to
Meditation apps that put you to sleep generally follow the same principle. First you need to slow down your breathing, which happens naturally when you fall asleep. That is, the body thus adjusts to sleep. They also involve a technique of deep and conscious stress relief, when you gradually turn to each part of the body and forcefully relax it. Plus, you need to focus on the announcer’s voice and drive away all extraneous thoughts.
This all sounds like a full-time job, and to be honest, it is.
Especially when it comes to thoughts: they, like some insects in a horror movie, constantly hit the imaginary glass that you put in front of them. And then one of them finds a crack – and away we go. What do you need to do for work tomorrow? Did I pay for the Internet? Is the top I wanted to wear to the party in the wash? Will I have time to wash it? And so on.
Nevertheless, I can call the experience with meditation successful. I successfully fell asleep every time. And it was just a blessing, considering the torment described above.
I know about techniques where you guide yourself along the path of relaxation without an announcer. But it works worse for me. Because the voice acts as the rope that you hold on to while you wander in the fog. I don’t know about you, but without a “guide” I always leave this metaphorical path and slide into a stupid mental gorge.
True, I didn’t do everything according to the rules. For example, in some meditations they suggest sitting on the floor and only then moving to bed. But I know myself. In the seconds it takes me to get up, I’ll wake up and everything will have to be redone. Therefore, I simply lay down on my back right on the mattress, and at the end of the meditation I promptly curled up and fell asleep.
I also didn’t always manage to complete the meditation; sometimes I fell asleep earlier. Maybe this is wrong, but my goal was to fall asleep, not to achieve enlightenment, so I have no complaints about myself.
Only once I couldn’t fall asleep while meditating. I was having a bad day and my anxious thoughts were so loud they drowned out the announcer’s voice. Then I had to act the old fashioned way – stay awake until the morning, until fatigue knocks you out.
The sleep after meditation turned out to be different – more sound, very similar to what you get after taking melatonin. This is both a plus and a minus at the same time. Because on some days it helps you sleep well, and on others you feel in the morning as if you didn’t get up, but rebelled.
In addition, I began to remember my dreams. Usually in the morning I don’t remember anything and don’t feel anything about it. But both melatonin before and meditation now gave me periodic nightmares, realistic and disturbing. We managed without Freddy Krueger, and thank you for that, but the experience was so-so. Although, in principle, I still put the ability to sleep higher on the list of priorities.
In general, I definitely like meditation. This would be an ideal way to improve sleep, if not for me.
Something went wrong
Surprise, surprise: even if you find a magic pill, it only works as long as you take it. For meditation to help you fall asleep, for example, at midnight, you need to get ready by this time, lie down and open the application.
That is, you need to make all the same efforts as when falling asleep without meditation: put down an interesting book, turn off an exciting TV series, close instant messengers, stop scrolling through TikTok.
So meditation helps me fall asleep, that’s true. The question is when do I turn them on. The idea seems simple, but it turns out that if a person has problems with self-organization, and not with the process of “switching off” as such, then what is required is not so much meditation as discipline. And now it’s no longer clear which application to install.
What helps you sleep? Share your experience in the comments.
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