Kiddipedia
“I can’t get to sleep.
The meeting didn’t go well this morning, and I have to talk to my boss tomorrow. Could I have done something differently, and how will I handle tomorrow?
I just want my head to be quiet.”
Falling and staying asleep can be difficult. Our minds—recovering from a frantic day, and already planning for the next— find no peace.
And yet, decades of research have confirmed that inadequate sleep negatively impacts our psychological and physical wellbeing (Markwald & Germain, 2020).
Even temporary sleep loss is known to reduce memory performance. If prolonged, a lack of sleep can profoundly impact our mental processing and our risk of serious illness, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity, and diabetes (Puentes-Mestril & Aton, 2017).
So, sleep is key to an optimally functioning brain and body, but that doesn’t help me lying here — awake.
What if there was a way of improving our sleep and protecting our physical and mental health, without cost, equipment, or drugs?
Well, there is.
A wealth of recent research tells us that mindfulness holds the answers.
One of the earliest known sleep studies, performed in 1896, kept volunteers awake for 90 hours.
Participants reported severe psychological and physiological effects, including hallucinations, declining physical strength, and an inability to control their temperature.
However, after a well-deserved rest, all volunteers returned to good health. Even a temporary, unexplained weight gain was short-lived.
Since then, science has continued to report that insufficient sleep can lead to a wide range of acute and chronic psychophysiological changes.
Improved Sleep Quality
A sizable 2019 review—including 1654 participants—confirmed the value of mindfulness in treating adults with trouble sleeping. Indeed, it recognized, that over time, mindfulness interventions lead to lasting improvements in both the quality and quantity of sleep without adverse effects (Rusch et al., 2019).
Top 3 Audios to Help You Sleep
Music, or soundscapes—immersive acoustic environments—can offer a calming environment to promote a sense of mindfulness and mental wellbeing, and provide relief from the day’s stress and ongoing feelings of anxiety.
Indeed, research into patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), found that relaxing music at bedtime improved sleep efficiency and reduced levels of depression (Blanaru et al., 2012).
The following musical landscapes may help you unwind and improve your chance of quality sleep and is consistent with research that has uncovered links between music and mindfulness (Diaz, 2011):
1. Studying Music for Concentration, Focus, Reading and Guitar Study Music
Studying Music for Concentration, Focus, Reading, and Guitar Study Music, as its name suggests, is intended as a background to activities requiring focus. However, the ambient music, accompanied by gentle classical guitar, provides an ideal backdrop to falling asleep.
2. The Sleeping Forecast
The BBC has been broadcasting a late-night maritime weather report, known as the Shipping Forecast, since 1911.
It is listened to by hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom are not sailors. Instead, people use it to fall asleep, and it has led to an unlikely collaboration.
The Sleeping Forecast combines the peaceful effect of reading the weather in the waters around the British Isles—with such evocative names as Trafalgar, Cromarty, Bailey—with instrumental music, to transport the listener to a gentle, watery slumber.
3. Max Richter’s “Sleep”
In 2015, the BBC invited its Radio 3 listeners to sleep through an epic eight-hour lullaby, recorded live. It began at midnight, with the intention that listeners would fall asleep, then wake up the next morning while the orchestra continued to play.
The appropriately named Sleep, by Max Richter, is an amazing, ethereal piece of classical music offering much-needed serenity.
Original Article can be seen here Yogazeit Ltd.
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