Sleep

[mark_cdf]

Hi,

I've been practicing mindfulness for a couple of months now, I started off with a Jon Kabatt-Zin video on YouTube, and have now read two of his books and bought some CDs.

Sometimes I have trouble sleeping (hence this post at 4am!) and this has got better since I started mindfulness. It's usually nights where I have something big, important or just different on in work the next day. One thing I really struggle with is practicing when in bed if I can't sleep. I just can't keep my focus on my breathing. Sometimes thoughts distract me, but often it's not even thoughts, I just lose concentration. I've tried doing the body scan too but never get further than my legs before I'm somewhere else, and still not asleep!

Should I even be trying to use it to help sleep like this? Any tips?

I'm very tied, just can't get off.

Thanks,
Mark

[Gareth]

Hi Mark,

Mindfulness has helped my sleep massively, but then I'm going on for threee years into my practice now. And even now I have nights when sleep is more elusive.

Sometimes when I have difficulty falling to sleep then I begin to meditate, and this can often help me to drop off. It's not a guaranteed certainty though, and we have to remember that when we are meditating we aren't trying to get anywhere i.e sleep. When we start to strive for things, it can make the practice less effective. Non-striving is quite a difficult concept to grasp for the beginner, as has been shown many times on this forum.

Keep practising and hopefully these issues will become clearer with time.

[JonW]

Hi Mark.
A good friend of mine suffered from similar problems with sleep and this book helped him a lot.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Buddhas-Book-Sl ... ness+sleep
Maybe worth checking out.
I wish you well.
Cheers, Jon

[calm_one]

If there is one benefit I most desire from meditation, its getting a better nights sleep! Although I know wanting it to work defeats the point.

I've never been a good sleeper, however 80% of the time its been okay, lately its never a good night.

I know exactly what you mean when you say you can't focus Mark, its like you're too tired to focus on meditating but at the same time you don't drop off. Can be quite frustrating.

[piedwagtail91]

i've tried a few things to help sleep.
the one that works best for me know is a routine of three things, two from yoga.
it helps settle my mind, i wouldn't say clear it but my mind is very quiet and i get to sleep usually within a few minutes.
you may need to see a yoga teacher
i start off with 5 minutes of nadi shodana or alternate nostril breathing, this in itself is very calming, it's hard to focus or mind wander when you're concentrating on this form of breath awareness, then i do a mindfulness or self compassion practice depending on what sort of day i've had and what i feel i need.
then 5 minutes of trataka, similar to candle gazing.
it's worked well for me over the past eight weeks when things have been very difficult.
when i wake during the night and i struggle to get back to sleep i've found that focussing my awareness of keeping my eyes OPEN usually gets me off to sleep!
when you notice your eyelids starting to slide closed force them back open and focus your awareness on keeping them open, usually i can get to sleep without even knowing it.

[FeeHutch]

I am another with a long history of sleep issues.
A couple of things that seem beneficial for me are:
Writing a little before bed, usually if something is worrying me a quick scribble can really help it seem a little more managable. I try and reflect on one thing I am grateful for too, it helps me approach sleep in a more positive frame of mind.
Also, 4am seems to be my wake up time when I have sleep disturbance. Now rather than wake and get anxious about how early it is, how tired I will be later I embrace it as an opportunity for some quiet time before the family wake. I accept I might be tired later but if this is the case I will rest or go to bed when I feel ready. The positive approach was hard to find initially but worth it.

[stacheman101]

Interesting topic. Sleep seems to be an issue for many folks. I've been falling asleep for very short "microbursts" during my meditations, despite a reasonable amount of rest. Today I was almost able to be aware of when the eyes started to close and sleep started to take over. I've been working on allowing anxiety in the body to come to awareness, and sleep seems to be a way to resist this, alas.

[FeeHutch]

Saying 4am is my usual wake up time if I can't sleep may have inadvertently been seen as a challenge by my monkey mind as I have been up since 2am having gone to bed at around 11.30pm

Still, this way I get to potter around and tidy up and actually take pleasure in the task rather than be followed by my children undoing all the tidying

[mark_cdf]

Thanks all, that's really helpful and gives me a few tips. I will definitely stick with it, I've already seen an improvement in my sleep and anxiety levels since practicing mindfulness, which is some ways makes it all the more frustrating when I do now get a sleepless night!

FeeHutch - So, you get up and do things when you can't sleep, but feel tired? I have read somewhere that this can help but never tried it as I always think "maybe I'll drop off in a minute".

piedwagtail91 - I've never heard of focusing on keeping your eyes OPEN, worth a go! Thank you.

Gareth - Yes, I do struggle a bit with the non-striving, I guess I am doing it with the intention of getting better sleep or reducing stressful feelings. I need to work on that.

It's so great to have a forum community to talk about these things.

Thanks all,
Mark

[FeeHutch]

Hi Mark
I get up because once I am awake, I am awake. Yesterday I did end up going for a nap later in the day but often I just go to bed a little earlier and it seems to work. The biggest change for me is not seeing being awake in the night as automatically negative. These days I actually quite enjoy the quiet