Having Trouble Sleeping?

How did you sleep last night?

I know what it's like not to sleep well. It can affect your life in many negative ways. One of the reasons I was first attracted to meditation is because I suffered from sleeping problems for many years. I’m so grateful that I discovered the power of Yoga Nidra & napping to help me improve my sleep. They have become invaluable practices in my life. These days I’m passionate about helping others to get a peaceful night's sleep too. 

 Do you find that you can never quite get enough sleep, or that if you go to bed at a reasonable time, you can be awake in the night and find it hard to get back to sleep? Maybe you get to sleep okay, but wake in the early hours and can’t quite unstick yourself from the many thoughts running through your mind. Well, you are not alone! 

According to Healthline:

‘About 35 to 50% of adults worldwide regularly experience insomnia symptoms’

You may be reluctant to go down the sleeping tablet road and have perhaps resigned yourself to living with chronic, low-level tiredness. However, there is an answer, and one that doesn’t involve taking any medication; it can be used to have a quick nap to take the edge of tiredness, get you through a stressful patch, or help with settling you down for a peaceful night of sleep, knowing that if you wake up, there is an effective resource you can turn to…

Meditation is the answer!

And no, it is not just hippies who are doing meditation these days. It turns out that top business people such as Bill Gates and A-listers like Oprah Winfrey and Joe Rogan are big meditators.

The Sleep Foundation (www.sleepfoundation.org) says:

‘When we are stressed, depressed, or anxious, our brain stays “wired” and we find it more difficult to fall asleep. Over the long term, we perpetuate this tension as we start to associate bedtime with worries about not being able to fall asleep. Like other sleep treatments, the main goal of meditation is to take the pressure off to fall asleep.’

Meditation has been used throughout history and in many cultures to invoke a sense of peace, calm and clarity. In the modern era, many studies and clinical trials have supported this, with the promotion of restful sleep being added to the list of beneficial side effects.

Studies have found that meditation can help to reduce the stress hormone, cortisol, by slowing the heart rate and breathing, thus making a peaceful night’s sleep possible. Meditation also increases melatonin levels, which helps control the sleep cycle and aids in more restful sleep.

‘By relaxing your body and brain, it’s easier to quieten the distracting thoughts that keep your mind buzzing. (www.floridamedicalclinic.com)

Meditation helps to rebalance the nervous system, sleepcycle.com explains how:

‘The autonomic nervous system is made up of two parts: one keeps us alert, and the other helps with sleep. The sympathetic nervous system is akin to a gas pedal regulating arousal and inflammation functions. The parasympathetic system is the brake that controls the anti-inflammatory and relaxation response. We need both, but they’re often out of balance because of chronic stress. Meditation has been shown to help overcome the imbalance of sympathetic nervous system dominance.

Another great advantage to using meditation to promote sleep is that it is entirely safe and avoids taking sleeping tablets, which can leave you feeling foggy in the head, and often lose their impact if taken too often. By contrast, the more you practice meditation, the quicker you can access the state of peace and calm, and the more you can evoke it at will.

Take a Nap

Many of my clients report that they use my meditations to take naps during the day. The most recent and up-to-date research shows the value of taking a nap during the day for the mind and body. These include significant benefits for heart health, a boost to cognitive abilities, improved motor skills, memory and psychological well-being.

Yoga Nidra

Most of us think of yoga as a practice to stretch and strengthen the body; certain ‘postures’ are adopted like ‘Salute the Sun’, ‘Head down Dog’ and ‘Cat Pose’. It seems everyone is doing yoga these days, a trend that has become bigger and bigger in Western countries since the 1960s.

Whilst yoga is designed to still the mind and create ‘union with god’ using exercises to achieve this, Yoga Nidra on the other hand, is purely a meditation practice. Nidra means sleep, so Yoga Nidra means Yogic Sleep. It begins with being still, lying or sitting in a comfortable spot. It uses our natural capacity for sleep to root us in a tranquil state where we can ‘consciously release our identification with thoughts’ (Kamini Desai: Yoga Nidra, The Art of Transformational Sleep).

As many of us know, it is ruminating thoughts that often prevent sleep, so the practice of Yoga Nidra (YN) deliberately disrupts this.

According to anahana.com, a global leader in mental health and well-being education, whose mission is to help the world find peace and balance:

Yoga Nidra, also known as yogic sleep, is a meditative technique that dates back to the 6th and 7th centuries, predating the common era and Buddhism. The unique meditation process is profoundly healing for the body, mind, and soul…while falling asleep, brain waves begin moving from thoughtful beta waves, pass through the stages of alpha waves, then theta waves, and finally enter the slowest frequency of sleep – delta waves. Yoga Nidra guides practitioners into a state of relaxation between the alpha and theta states. This allows us to lie in deep relaxation between waking and sleeping.

True Rest

I have been offering Yoga and Meditation sessions for over 25 years. Through consistent attention to my client's feedback, my own practice and ongoing training, I have developed an effective intervention for those who struggle with their sleep. ‘True Rest’ is my unique technique, drawn from Yoga Nidra and other meditation practices, to guide people into deep states of relaxation. I now have thousands of followers all over the world who are doing my meditations.

Some people like to come to classes to meditate with others, especially on Zoom, so they can do the meditation in bed and drift off to sleep at the end of a class. Other people prefer to use my online recorded sessions to promote sleep and restfulness. I also offer bespoke recordings where following a consultation, I address specific challenges my client might be facing around relaxation and achieving restful sleep.

Please contact me to discuss your sleep challenges and the best way forward 

You can also join one of my classes: Book In

I would love to help you sleep better!

Love Amanda x

Testimonials

When I could not sleep at night Amanda gave me short meditations and breathing exercises to do throughout the day, for 5 mins every hour or so. After a few days, the effect was that I got much less ‘wound up’ in the daytime, and it was much easier to ‘unwind’ in the nighttime.

Martin Houlihan

Amanda’s meditations have been a lifesaver during my extended periods when I am either so busy or so jet lagged, that I find it hard to sleep. Amanda knows how to relax the body and calm the mind, and also how to train the will not to seek to force sleep, but rather foster the conditions in which sleep can occur. She also helps me remember that deep meditation, with a totally relaxed body and mind, is just as good as sleep if it simply won’t come.

Prof Greg Clark CBE FAcSS

Amanda uses Yoga Nidra techniques to gently shift the body and the mind towards relaxed awareness, letting go of physical and mental stress or tensions, so that true peace can be attained and sleep can happen.



Isabella Franks