Our body goes through three phases of sleep cycles every night. This includes light sleep, REM sleep, and deep sleep. The duration of deep sleep in a 7-8 hour cycle is somewhere between 13 and 23% for most adults. But as we grow up, this keeps on reducing due to day-to-day stress, anxiety, and restlessness.
This leaves the person with excessive tossing and turning in bed, followed by a bad mood and fatigue in the morning. Most of the body repair work happens during the “deep sleep stage” only. It includes the healing of damaged tissues, muscle relaxation, hormone regulation, and strengthening of the immune system.
Lack of proper deep sleep can lead to poor mental growth, metabolism, and brain function. Meditation can be a great way to improve our deep sleep quality, and you can make it work even better by eating a few deep sleep gummies before starting the session. Let’s learn about simple and easy guided meditation techniques that you can learn and enjoy at your home with minimal prerequisites.
The science behind guided meditation and deep sleep
A 2019 published meta-analysis of more than 18 trials and 3,000 records involving 1645 test subjects concluded that mindful meditation techniques do have the potential to improve some aspects of sleep issues.
According to some experts, human bodies often need a clear signal to establish that it’s time to sleep. Guided meditation can help by acting as a bridge between this gap. Once you start listening to gentle hymns and calming audios, your brain starts to produce high amounts of alpha and theta waves.
The pattern of these waves is associated with the beginning of relaxation and early sleep stages. At the same time, your nervous system moves from its flight or fight default mode to resting and laid-back mode.
This can be observed in real time by tracking the levels of the related hormone cortisol. As cortisol levels go down, blood pressure also drops, and muscles become more relaxed and tension-free.
Studies have shown that a properly followed mindfulness meditation technique can improve sleep quality among those who have mild sleep disturbances. But, of course, more large-scale trials are required. That’s why deep sleep gummies make it even better because CBD and melatonin present in them further increase overall relaxation.
Why is guided meditation more effective compared to other methods?
The biggest benefit of guided meditation is that your inner voice doesn’t run here and there, which is not possible in self-guided meditation. Instead of focusing too hard on your inner thoughts, guided meditation allows your mind and body to surrender to the guiding voice.
This reduces the pressure on your brain and allows you to leave your thoughts and worries without much hassle. The guiding voice acts like a solid foundation that stops your mind from wandering here and there.
A study done by researchers at the University of Massachusetts shows that regular meditation has a major positive impact on brain structure over time. Regular meditation increases the strength of weaker neural pathways that are responsible for managing our stress response. This brings a long-lasting impact on our sleep quality, which gets better and better every time.
What are the benefits of guided meditation for deep sleep?
Regular guided meditation has several benefits beyond the improvement of sleep quality. It’s good for both physical and mental health. With time, it brings down the anxiety you feel before bedtime and keeps your mind free from racing, stressful thoughts. Whatever negativity or troubling things you have picked up subconsciously throughout the day, take a back seat and stop bothering you at bedtime.
Physically, regular guided meditation helps to bring down your resting heart rate, which can benefit you in sports and day-to-day fitness activities. People report that not only do they fall asleep much faster than before, but they also find that the quality of their sleep becomes much deeper and more fulfilling. This recharges your body pretty well and helps you wake up in the morning without any physical or mental discomfort.
The duration of “deep sleep” (when body repair happens) also increases if you do deep guided meditation before bed. This has been observed by using industry-grade sleep recording equipment called polysomnography.
Meditation also improves your mind-muscle connection and helps you to become more aware of the changes inside your body. Some people can recognize if they are about to fall sick and also deal with tension accumulation in areas that can trouble them at night.
How to do guided meditation as a beginner?
Start by creating an appropriate atmosphere by making the room a bit cool and dark. Now, take a deep breath, hold it for a few seconds, and release it through your mouth slowly by counting from 1 to 6.
Now, play a guided meditation routine on YouTube or any meditation app on your phone. Lie down, close your eyes, and follow the voice coming from the device. Don’t make any effort to question; just listen and take deep breaths. Visualize each part of your body and take mental pictures starting from head to toe.
Take a picture, let it go, take a picture, let go, and keep repeating this. After the whole body is covered, imagine yourself in a cool and calm place. It can be a childhood memory, a beach, a forest, or anything.
Try to chant some affirmation mantras if possible, and allow your body to slowly drift into a deep, restful state. Eating a deep sleep gummy before starting this activity can provide fast results due to nerve-calming ingredients present in those delicious chewy treats.
The End Note
To sum it up, guided meditation is scientifically proven to be an effective method of improving your deep sleep quality and overall sleep duration. It not only improves your mind-muscle connection but also makes you mentally healthier over time. The best time to practice is 20-30 minutes before your bedtime.
Within a few weeks to months, you’ll start noticing significant changes in your sleep patterns and their depth. You can take a deep-sleep gummy an hour before this practice to further reduce your overall mental and physical fatigue. Just make sure to buy the gummies only from reputable and well-tested brands like Colorado Botanicals.
