How Mindfulness Can Help with Insomnia
Many people in the world have trouble sleeping and feel the symptoms of insomnia at night. They try many things to feel better. Some use magnesium or melatonin. A few count sheep. Others look at their phones. But these things do not work for them.
But here is something that many people do not think about. When you try hard to sleep, it becomes harder to fall asleep.
This article talks about how insomnia can change the way you sleep. You will get to know why your mind can get busy at night. The science behind awareness and sleep will also be covered. There are easy things you can do each day that may help you sleep better and feel more rested.
The article also shares how mindfulness-based tools for insomnia works. This approach uses focuses on living in the now. It helps people to handle sleep troubles without judging themselves.
What Is Mindfulness, Really?
It means you notice the present moment on purpose. You do it without trying to judge what is happening.
That definition is from Jon Kabat-Zinn. He started Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the late 1970s.It is a skill you can learn. You can practice it, and it can also be measured.
Mindfulness is all about mindful awareness of what is happening right now. You notice your thoughts, feelings, and body. You do not think about what happened earlier today. You do not worry about what could come tomorrow. You focus on this moment.
When you practice, you pay attention to what you think and feel. You also notice what happens in your body. You do not try to change anything. You just notice it.
This may seem too simple to be important. But the science shows it is not like that.
Why the Mind Becomes So Active at Night
During the day, your brain is always busy. You go from one task to another task. You also have talks and make decisions. Your attention always has a place to be.
But when you get in bed at night, everything gets quiet. The noise around you is gone. Then, the thoughts that you put away during the day come back to your mind.
This is not something that means your mind is broken. It is a sign that you have a normal brain. A normal brain tries to solve problems, think about what may happen next, and feel many things. This is what people do. It is also what the brain is made to do.
The problem is with time. At night, your mind works against you because it is busy.
Research by Harvey (2002) found that people often have worry-based thoughts at bedtime. They keep thinking about many things again and again. This makes the nervous system more active. The person feels more alert and awake. Because of this, it can be hard for them to get to sleep.
The more you try to push away those thoughts, the stronger they feel. When you try to stop a thought, it takes a lot of energy from your mind. Using a lot of mental energy is not what helps you go to sleep. This is exactly what I help people solve inside my Complete Sleep Reset Program.
The Insomnia Cycle and How It Traps You
Insomnia does not show up on its own. The problem keeps coming back in a cycle.
First, you might find it hard to sleep well for a few nights. This can happen because of stress, being sick, or something changing in your day. Then, you start to feel upset about not getting enough rest. That worry can make it even harder to sleep. The cycle then goes on and on.
Your brain gets alert and watchful right when you want it to be calm.
With time, the bed can feel like something that makes you worry. You may not feel good or safe there anymore. Instead of being able to rest, you feel like going to bed is a test you might not get right.
Morin and others shared these ideas in 2006 when they studied how the mind thinks and acts about sleep. They found that worried thoughts and things you do, like looking at the clock or staying away from your bed, can keep going even after the thing that first made you feel stressed is gone.
Mindfulness can help break this cycle. It does not mean you have to push your thoughts away. Instead, it is about seeing your thoughts in a different way.
Awareness vs. Control: A Crucial Shift
Many people see bad sleep as something they need to fix. They often try to take control of the situation.
They look at the clock. They think about how many hours are left. They tell themselves again and again to relax, stop thinking, and try to sleep.
Trying this can go wrong. Wanting too much control can make you feel more stress. And stress makes it hard to sleep. This is a big problem for people with insomnia.
Offers a whole new way. You do not try to be in charge of the night. Instead, you look at it and watch what happens.
You notice your mind is busy right now. Your body feels tense. You are lying awake.
You see these physical states for what they are. You do not try to fight them. You do not judge or call them a problem.
This change from wanting to control things to being aware is one of the most important ideas in Kabat-Zinn’s work. He says that it is not about making things different. The idea is to see things just as they are.
When you stop trying to fight being awake, something happens. The struggle feels less hard. After that, you often fall asleep.
What the Science Says About Mindfulness therapy for insomnia
The number of studies on the effects of mindfulness and sleep is going up fast. Many good studies now show its benefits. Some of these findings were shared by the American Psychological Association.
Some other researchers did a randomized controlled trial in 2015. This study was published in JAMA Internal Medicine. They worked with older adults who had some sleep disturbance. One group learned about mindfulness awareness practice. The other group got sleep hygiene education. The group that did the practice had much better sleep quality. They also felt less tired in the day. Their mood got better, too.
A study by Gong and others in 2016 looked at 18 studies. They found that mindfulness-based programs, which are part of mind body medicine, helped reduce problems like trouble falling asleep, waking up during the night, and having problems during the day.
Neuroscience can help us understand more. When scientists use brain scans, they see that doing mindfulness often can change the prefrontal cortex and amygdala engagement. These are parts of the brain that deal with our feelings, stress, and how we slow down our body’s response to things.
In short, mindfulness does not just make you feel calm. It also makes clear changes in your brain that help you sleep.
How Stress and the Body Block Sleep
To know why this works, you have to see what stress does to your body at night.
When you feel worried or your mind is busy, the body lets out cortisol and adrenaline. Your heart starts to beat faster. You breathe in a shallow way. Your muscles feel tight.
This is called the stress response. It gets you ready to do something. You may feel the need to fight, run away, or fix a problem. The stress response is not the same as the calm and safe state your body needs so you can fall asleep.
The problem is that the brain will not always see a difference between real danger and a worried thought. If you keep thinking about tomorrow’s meeting, your mind turns on the same system as it would for a real threat.
The Breath as an Anchor
One of the most useful tools you can use is the breath.
The breath is always there. You do not need any tools to feel it. There is no need for a quiet room or a meditation cushion. You can use it anywhere you like, even when you are lying in bed at 2 a.m.
When you put your attention on your breath, two things take place.
First, you stop thinking about those thoughts that keep worry going. You give your mind something easy and calm to do.
Second, when you breathe slowly and with thought, this directly turns on the relaxation response. Zaccaro and his team found in 2018 that taking slow breaths at about six times per minute raises heart rate variability a lot. This heart rate variability shows that the nervous system is more calm.
You do not have to make yourself breathe slow on purpose. When you just notice your breath, it will often slow down by itself.
Observing Thoughts Without Following Them
One of the main skills is to learn how to notice thoughts and not get pulled into them.
Kabat-Zinn often talks about weather to explain thoughts. He says thoughts are like clouds in the sky. The clouds come, and then they go. The sky is still there, and the clouds do not make the sky what it is.
When you stay up at night, thoughts come into your head. You may start to worry about money. You might think about an embarrassing thing that happened to you. You could also think about what you want to do in the morning.
Without mindfuless, you follow each thought. You take part with it, build on it, or you argue with it. This keeps the mind busy and alert.
With mindfulness, you see the thought as it comes. You may even say to yourself that this is a worry thought. Then, you let it move on and do not follow it.
This is not about blocking your thinking. You are not forcing the thought out. You are only picking not to go with it.
As time goes by, this skill will get easier. The mind will get used to the idea that it does not need to act on every thought. This is very useful, especially at night.
The Practice of Acceptance
One of the ideas that you might find strange is acceptance.
Acceptance does not mean you give up or that you like your situation. It means you see what is true right now. You do not add more resistance or judgment to it.
When you lay in bed and think, “I should be asleep,” or feel bad about not sleeping, it only makes things worse. You may say to yourself, “I will be so tired tomorrow.” This adds stress to the way you feel, which is not good, on top of the fact that you can’t sleep.
Acceptance sounds different. It can sound like this: I am awake at this moment. My mind is busy. This feels hard, but it is okay.
This change helps bring down what some experts call “first suffering.” First suffering is the story that you tell yourself about what happens.
Ong et al. (2012) found that using mindfulness-based thinking, which brought acceptance ways and CBT-I together, made people feel less worry about sleep. It also helped lower things like getting tense at night.
Acceptance makes room for us to feel. In that space, your body and mind can start to feel calm.
The Body Scan: A Simple Practice for Nighttime Calm
The body scan is a practice that many healthy individuals use to help with sleep. It can also help with emotion regulation. Kabat-Zinn first shared the body scan as a key part of MBSR.
Here is how it works:
- Lie on your back and make sure you feel good.
- Close your eyes. Pay attention to your feet.
- Notice what you feel there. It could be warm, cool, some pressure, or a little tingle. Just feel it. You do not have to change what you feel.
- Move your focus up from your feet through your body. Go to your calves, then knees, then your thighs, hips, belly, chest, hands, arms, shoulders, neck, and face.
- Pause for a few breaths in each part. Just watch what you feel.
- If your thoughts go somewhere else, gently return to paying attention to your body.
The body scan helps because it gives the mind something to do that does not need much thought. It moves your focus from feeling worried about what may happen, to what is happening with your body right now.
Studies by Ong et al. (2014) found the body scan helped people feel less alert at night. It also made sleep quality better in people who have chronic insomnia or feel restless often.
Daytime Mindfulness Shapes Nighttime Rest
Many people feel that mindfulness is done only when you get ready for bed. But research shows that practice during the day is also important.
When you practice awareness in the day, you grow a good skill. It helps your body and mind learn how to move from feeling tense to feeling calm. This skill will be there for you at night too.
Day practice can help to lower stress that you bring into the evening. This is especially true for people with chronic pain. If there is less stress through the day, your mind will not work as much at night.
Just a few minutes of deep breathing during the workday can help lower your mind’s alertness. A short body scan before dinner can also calm you down.
Kabat-Zinn says this is not just a trick to use whenever you feel like it. It is a way to live your life. This way of being grows as you practice it every day.
Working With Wakefulness Instead of Fighting It
Here is something that may surprise you. You can rest even if you are not asleep.
When you lie still, feel calm in your mind, close your eyes, and breathe slowly, your body gets real rest. You start to feel better. Your system becomes quiet. Your brain has time to deal with things and make sense of them.
When you stop trying hard to sleep and just relax with your eyes closed, you take away the stress that makes it hard to sleep.
Sleep researcher Jason Ong says trying less hard to force sleep can help a lot. He points out that lowering effort to make yourself sleep is one of the most helpful things people can do. This simple change can really make a big difference.
Strangely, when you stop trying so hard to get to sleep, you may find that sleep comes to you.
Building a Mindfulness Routine for Better Sleep
Consistency is more important than how long you practice. Doing five minutes every day will help your sleep more than doing a long session now and then. This is true for people with an insomnia disorder.
Here are three good ways to add into your day:
- Morning: When you wake up, spend five minutes paying attention to your breathing. Notice each time you breathe in and out. This mindfulness practice is shown in a pilot study to help with insomnia symptoms for people in the context of insomnia.
- Afternoon: During the day, take a small break. Move away from screens. Spend two minutes noticing the sounds, sights, and what you feel around you.
- Bedtime: In bed, practice a body scan meditation or a breath-focused mindfulness practice for ten to fifteen minutes. Don’t feel you have to fall asleep right away. Just use this time to relax and let your mind rest.
As time goes by, these small habits can change the way the nervous system acts at night.
Common Challenges in Practice
People often stop because they feel that they are not doing it the right way. Here are some common problems people face and how to handle them.
This is normal. Actually, this is how it works. When you see that your mind has gone somewhere else, you have shown awareness. Just bring your focus back to the breath or body.
Restlessness is a feeling, and not something you have failed at. Take some time to notice it. Where do you feel this in your body? What does it feel like? Watch it with some curiosity.
This is okay, especially if you do this at bedtime. The goal is not to stay alert. The goal is to rest and be aware.
Some sessions feel deep. Others feel dull. Both are okay. The value comes with time, not just from one session.
Mindfulness and Sleep Habits: A Powerful Pair
Mindfulness can help you most when you stick to good sleep habits along with CBT-I. When you do all three together, insomnia remission rates go up. Some good sleep habits are:
- Try to go to bed and get up at the same time every day. Do this on weekends too.
- Stay away from screens like phones and TVs for at least an hour before you sleep.
- Keep your bedroom cool. Make sure it is dark and quiet.
- Do not have drinks with caffeine after midday.
- If you are not sleeping after 20 minutes, get out of bed. It is better than lying there feeling frustrated.
The last point is about cognitive therapy for insomnia. If you get out of bed when you are not able to sleep, it can help. Doing a calm and quiet activity will help your mind stop linking the bed with being awake.
When you go back to bed, you feel more calm in your mind. A calm mind helps you get to sleep better.
The Long Game: What Consistent Practice Builds
Mindfulness is not something you can learn right away. It is a skill. Like any skill, you get better at it as you practice more. Doing it again and again can help stop the relapse of depression.
After a few weeks of practice, most people see that their thoughts feel less urgent. Worries start to feel less strong, and there is less emotion tied to them. The nervous system also gets better at moving from feeling worked up to feeling calm.
After some months, these changes feel more steady. You start to sleep better. Waking up at night does not feel as bad. The way you feel about your bed also changes. It can go from being a place of worry to a space that feels calm or even restful.
A study by Britton et al. (2010) found that people who took part in an MBSR program had noticeable changes in their sleep. They spent more time in the sleep stages that help the body rest and feel restored fully.
From Doing to Being: The Deepest Shift
Most people live their lives in a “doing mode”. They are busy planning, reaching goals, solving problems, and making things better. This way of thinking is needed in day-to-day life.
But to sleep, you need to be in “being mode”. You just stay present and let go of any plan. Rest comes when you do not try too hard.
Mindfulness helps you stay in the present. You do not have to change what is happening. You can feel the moment just as it is.
At night, this way of thinking is everything. When you stop seeing sleep as something you must do perfectly, things change. When you stop trying to match what you think sleep should look like, the pressure starts to go away.
And when there is no pressure, the body knows what to do on its own.
What Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Work Teaches Us About Sleep
Jon Kabat-Zinn did not make Wherever You Go, There You Are for sleep. He made it to help people live with more awareness. This book is for those who want to be more aware every day.
But what it teaches is important for people who have sleep problems.
He says that most of the time, we are not really here in the moment. The mind likes to wander. A lot of people stay in the past or think about what is going to come next.
At night, you see this habit the most. The past keeps playing in your mind. You think about the future and feel it is near. The present moment, which is the one place where sleep can come, slips away.
Mindfulness means coming back to the now. You do not do it just one time. You come back again and again. You bring patience and kindness with you each time.
That returning is what makes sleep possible.
Sleep Is Not Something You Do. It Is Something You Allow.
This could be the most important idea in the whole article.
You can’t make yourself fall asleep by trying hard. Sleep is not like a meeting that you can be sure of. You cannot just decide to sleep with your own willpower.
Sleep takes place when the body is ready and there are the right conditions. Sleep comes when you feel tired and your body gets worn out. The most important thing is that your mind needs to not fight against sleep.
Mindfulness helps make those mental conditions. It does this not by making the mind quiet, but by letting the mind see its own actions in a new way.
You do not need to stop your mind from thinking. You just need to stop following every idea that comes up.
You do not need to like lying awake at night. You just need to stop fighting it.
That change, when you stop fighting and start to just watch, when you let things be instead of trying to control, is where you start to find rest.
What Is The Best Solution For Sleep Maintenance Insomnia?
Mindfulness therapy for insomnia helps people who have sleep disorders or trouble staying asleep. This type of therapy teaches you to be more aware of your thoughts and feel calm. That can lower anxiety, which often keeps people up at night. Things like guided meditation, breathing practice, and using ideas from cognitive behavioural therapy can all help. They work on the real problems that get in the way of rest. When you practice these ways, your sleep quality can get much better.
Conclusion: A New Way to Meet the Night
Insomnia is a very common and tough problem many people deal with, especially those with chronic insomnia or other insomnia disorders. A lot of insomnia patients feel more frustration when they try hard to sleep. This is because the usual treatment response, making yourself try even more to get to sleep, can make it worse. Often, this happens because it causes more cognitive activity and keeps the mind busy.
Mindfulness helps you see what goes on in your mind instead of always following it. It shows you how to notice your thoughts, but not chase after them. You learn to be okay with the present moment, even if you can’t sleep, and not make things feel worse than they are.
The science backs this up. The practice you need to do is easy. The results may take some time to show, but they last.
Key Takeaways
- Mindfulness means to pay attention to what is happening right now without judging it.
- Problems with sleep, like insomnia, often happen because you get stuck in anxious thoughts at night.
- When you try hard to fall asleep, you actually feel more awake and it gets harder to sleep.
- If you choose to watch your thoughts but not get caught up in them, those thoughts lose their strength.
- If you let yourself just be awake at night and accept it, you feel less stress.
- Focusing on your breathing or doing a body scan are useful ways to feel calm at night.
- Meditating in the day with a mindfulness practice helps you to have better sleep quality.
- You will likely see lasting changes in your sleep quality if you practice mindfulness meditation practice often for several weeks or months.
If you feel like this article is talking to you, know that you do not have to face sleep struggle on your own. You can have a free 20-minute chat with me. In this call, we will talk about what has been going on with you these days and see if working together is the right choice for you.
References:
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever You Go, There You Are.
Improving sleep with mindfulness and acceptance: a metacognitive model of insomnia
The information above is shared only to give you general information. The things you read in this post are not meant to be medical advice, and you should not use any of this before talking to a doctor.