How To Fall Asleep Fast with Guided Meditations
Struggling to fall asleep fast is problematic because it can affect your night and the following day. With chronic sleep issues, you may also develop anxiety about it, which can only cause more trouble falling asleep.
Regardless of how light or severe your sleep issues are, you are not alone. Many people, just like you, can benefit from guided meditations to help you fall asleep fast.
Guided meditations help regulate your nervous system to relax, feel safe, and fall asleep.
Do guided meditations work to help you fall asleep fast?
Some of my patients say guided meditations won't help them sleep…
Here are some reasons why:
If they don't work immediately, I lose my patience and get frustrated.
I forget to use them consistently.
I sleep with my husband in the same bed and don't want to bother him.
The meditation ends before I fall asleep, and I become even more agitated.
Meditations make me more anxious sometimes
They don't work for me.
In my clinical experience, guided meditations can be very supportive on the journey to falling asleep easier. Let’s see how we can make them work for you.
How to best approach using guided meditations to fall asleep fast
Using guided meditations calms the sympathetic nervous system and activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn helps you fall asleep fast.
Here are some simple yet effective strategies on how to use guided meditations successfully:
Have an app ready and downloaded, with meditations already bookmarked, so you spend at most a few moments looking up the meditation when needed. Examples of meditation apps are Insight Timer, Calm, and Headspace. I enjoy using Insight Timer, it is free and I am familiar with many of their meditations. Check out my list below of some of my favorite meditations.
Find a handful of favorite meditations that you can go back to quickly. I’ve shared a quick list below.
Make sure the meditations are 30 minutes or longer. If they are too short, they may exacerbate your anxiety. In my clinical experience, 15-20 minutes of listening to a guided meditation is not long enough to relax the mind and to engage the parasympathetic nervous system, which are critical for proper sleep.
If you have a bed partner, have your earbuds ready to use. Although some partners do not mind playing the meditation out loud, as it can help them sleep better. In other cases, some people will awake at 1 or 2 am, listen to a meditation out loud, and their partner never notices.
Focus on resting rather than falling asleep. I know you want to fall asleep, but the expectation can put too much pressure on sleep and cause the opposite of what you want. For example, the practice of Yoga nidra focuses on body awareness in order to increase relaxation and prevent the mind from wandering.
Find out what kind of meditation works for you. There's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to meditation. Whether it's less talk, more nature sounds, or even an audiobook to keep your mind more engaged - there is a meditation type that's perfect for you. Yoga nidra-type meditation and meditations that use body scanning techniques are very effective.
Start using the meditation before you get anxious, whether you are trying to fall asleep or go back to sleep don’t worry - if you’ve been awake for more than a few minutes, grab your phone, open the app and play one of the bookmarked meditations. Focus on resting, enjoying the warmth of your bed and if your mind wanders keep coming back to listening to the meditation.
Use the guided meditations daily for a couple of weeks before deciding whether they help.
A list of meditations to help you fall asleep fast
My go-to meditation app is the free app Insight Timer. Here are a few suggestions for meditations that I often recommend to patients.
Sleep-Inducing Relaxation with Delta Waves and Binaural Beats Music by Damiana Corca
Healing Darkness for Sleep by Jennifer Piercy
Surrender to Stillness by Sarah Blondin
Stop Overthinking by Andrew Johnson
Deep Sleep Meditation by Andrew Johnson
Releasing anxiety by Kate James
Insight Timer contains over 100,000 meditations, nature tracks, bedtime stories, and more. Explore and make your list of bookmarked meditations.
Further sleep support to fall asleep fast
What if guided meditations are not enough to help you fall asleep fast? Then, we can look further at the root causes of why you can sleep well.
The top insomnia and sleeplessness root causes I see in my clinical practice are the following:
High cortisol levels that keep you up at night.
Low calming-neurotransmitters such as serotonin, glycine, taurine, or GABA.
Imbalanced sex hormones such as estrogen and progesterone.
If you'd like to explore further support, schedule a free consult for local help in Boulder, CO, or long-distance via telehealth.
Check out my book: The Deep Blue Sleep—A Roadmap to Fall Asleep and Stay Asleep Naturally. Available in Paperback, E-book, and Audio.