Best Guided Meditations for Relaxation and Sleep
Dealing with Stress
Have you ever struggled to deal with your stress, even though you eat well and get enough exercise? There is another component which can make a huge difference to the quality of your life, it’s learning to cope with stress and coping with stress takes resilience.
The most important step you can take to deal with stress is to get the correct amount of sleep. Sleep deprivation causes fatigue which causes stress. Stress produces cortisol which directly affects your auto immune system. This decreases your body’s ability to fight off toxins and to produce enzymes to heal. Increased toxicity causes irritation, depression and more anxiety. It also causes increased inflammation which results in physical symptoms like illness.
Having said that, we don’t all live in a perfect world where everyone gets their 8 hours of sleep a day. There are many factors which can affect the quality of your sleep, especially in the busy, hectic world most of us live in. However, there are other measures you can take to help you become more resilient to stress. Learning relaxation techniques will make a huge difference to your life, and to managing your stress.
Benefits of Meditation
Mediation has finally been accepted by the mainstream as an essential life skill. Even the US Marines use meditation both as a coping mechanism for post traumatic stress, and to help with reassimilation into civilian society. Many schools are starting to incorporate meditation into their curricula as a basic life skill. The Mayo clinic recommends meditation for it’s cancer patients. There are many examples of how meditation has benefited people.
Practicing relaxation has the following benefits:
- it lowers blood pressure
- it slows your breathing
- It lowers fatigue
- reduces irritability, and is in general a good mood stabilizer
- It can improve concentration and focus
- It slows your heart rate
- It reduces the production of cortisol which reduces stress
- it helps when dealing with chronic pain and muscle tension
- it can also give you a confidence boost.
Best Guided Meditations for Relaxation and Sleep
I’ve heard so many people say they don’t have enough time in the day to meditate. This is a bit short sighted in that the busier you are the more you need the skills to cope with the stress that comes with a busy life. It’s really not very hard to learn, it doesn’t cost a cent, you only need to find 20 minutes a day to do it and there are literally hundreds of free guided meditation podcasts available on the internet. I have a taken a bit of time to find some really useful ones, some of them even have soothing music too. These are the ones that I like the most. My favourite is Meditation Oasis – I love the music and her soothing voice.
Here are our Top 5 Best Guided Meditations for Relaxation and Sleep:
http://www.fragrantheart.com/cms/free-audio-meditations
http://www.freemindfulness.org/download
http://www.meditationoasis.com
and of course, https://www.easemeditation.com
I have come to regard the time that I set aside for meditation as a kind of mini-holiday in my day, it’s like giving yourself permission to stop dwelling on past mistakes and regrets and also not having to worry about anything in the future! The idea is to just be in the moment to float and free your mind of things that create a lot of unnecessary noise in your head. To focus on just breathing, just being.
Try it for 30 days, I guarantee you won’t be able to give it up and you will find it benefits you in so many ways in so many areas of your life.
I have trouble falling asleep. I will try listening to these.
I rarely have trouble falling asleep, but for those times I will try this
I have always had insomnia I think these may help, thanks so much!
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