When it’s lights out and time for sleep, do you find your body is willing but your mind is not? Despite exhausted limbs craving rest ASAP, your mind is still switched ‘ON’, leaping between unrelated thoughts, re-hashing the same old storyline and/or buzzing over the day’s events.
It feels exhausting, frustrating … and you’re not alone. For many of us, the busy-ness and chatter of the day doesn’t stop when we peel back the doona and hop into bed for the night. Other times the mind wants to stay up late by rehashing problems and events from way back when.
Going over work issues, unfinished personal conversations and same old worries can spark a vicious circle of wakefulness, over-stimulation and unease: certainly not ideal conditions for a good night’s sleep!
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This is where a simple little mini meditation called “Putting the Day to Bed” can help create bedtime calm. By mentally picturing all the details of your day, this exercise aims to reduce and resolve the accumulation of built-up stresses, free up mental bandwidth, quiet internal chatter and prepare the mind for quality zzzs. Putting the Day to Bed works best when you recall as much detail as possible, move your awareness quickly and resist the temptation to engage with the memory.
Here are the steps to follow:
1. Snuggle up under the doona, close your eyes and begin by casting your mind back to the very moment you woke up. Take a quick snapshot of that time in your mind’s eye; recall your location, activity, emotions, company.
2. Now, move forward in time and remember yourself eating breakfast. Where were you? What were you doing? How did you feel? Who were you with? Recall any tastes, smells etc.
3. Continue moving through the day as if watching a re-run movie of yourself! Revisit morning tea, lunch, mid-afternoon, dinner time and evening, recollecting the same details and remaining detached.
4. Now, bring yourself to the present moment. Know that your day up until right now is over, it’s not possible back in time. Put your day to bed. Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it!
Wishing you sweet dreams.
