If you’ve spent too many sleepless nights tossing and turning, your mind racing faster than your treadmill during an all-out sprint interval, you’re not alone. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in three adults report getting less than the recommended minimum of 7 hours of sleep per night.

Those numbers are nothing to snooze on. Anyone and everyone can benefit from paying more attention to their Zzzs. After all, good sleep is essential to maintaining good health, supporting mental wellbeing, and performing your best physically. Conversely, failing to regularly get enough quality sleep is linked with numerous chronic health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and depression.

While there’s no magic solution to better rest, sleep meditation is one entirely natural and supremely effective method for falling and staying asleep. “Some meditations help give us energy, others help us cultivate certain qualities such as kindness or empathy, but sleep meditations are geared toward truly calming the body down, quieting the mind, and setting the stage for sleep,” says Peloton instructor Kristin McGee. 

Below, learn everything you need to know about sleep meditation, including the benefits of the practice, techniques to know, and tips for adding sleep meditation into your nightly routine.

What Is Sleep Meditation?

Sleep meditation is a specific type of meditation that helps you soothe the mind to relax the body and ease into restful sleep. It’s “a powerful tool to help you unwind, calm your nervous system, and slip into deeper rest,” says Elizabeth Winkler, a psychotherapist and certified meditation teacher. “These practices help move the brain from alert beta waves to theta and delta, the states associated with deep rest and sleep.” In short, sleep meditations are designed to help you drift off—so if you fall asleep during or right after it, you know it’s doing the trick.

You can liken sleep meditation to a warm-up before a HIIT workout or a run: Just as a few simple bodyweight movements can prepare your body to perform at its peak, sleep meditation can prepare your mind for blissful sleep.

Sleep Meditation vs. Traditional Meditation

Sleep meditation is similar to traditional meditation in that both help you consciously disconnect from your thoughts and focus on being present. Both also use similar meditation tools, like body scanning, guided meditations, visualizations, and breathwork.

However, they have a few key differences. According to Winkler, these include:

Benefits of Sleep Meditation

Sleep meditation is a relatively simple practice, but it comes with some powerful benefits.

1. Better Sleep

Sleep meditation helps you sleep longer and better. You may find it easier to fall asleep, stay asleep, and get plenty of restorative sleep—which includes spending more time in REM and deep sleep stages. You’re also more likely to awake refreshed and restored the morning after doing a night meditation. 

2. Improved Mental Health

If anxiety keeps you up at night, meditation may be one helpful tool in getting better rest. Meditating before bed may be especially helpful if you find your mind racing the second your eyes close. When you’re go-go-go during the day, your body and mind are distracted from your worries, fears, and anxiety. But the second you lie down, these thoughts can bubble up to the forefront of your mind, making rest seemingly impossible. A nighttime meditation can be just the thing to quiet those unwanted thoughts.

3. Stress Reduction

Meditation has also been shown to reduce stress. That may be because meditation can affect our hormone levels. Specifically, the practice can lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that, at high levels, is associated with poor sleep. It can also increase melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate sleep and drowsiness.

Sleep meditation aims to move your focus away from stressful or unwanted chatter in your head so that you can be fully in the present moment. Your attention shifts toward your breathing and other sensations in the body, which activates the parasympathetic nervous system, a network of nerves focused on helping you “rest and digest.” This automatically slows your heart rate and breathing, increases serotonin levels, and makes it easier for you to drift off to sleep.

4. Increased Sense of Calm

We all have high expectations for ourselves—but with night meditation, you’ll learn to minimize those in a way that feels beneficial. “Clearly, there will be some hope or expectation that peace of mind will result and thus an easy sleep, but by entering meditation with a mindset of no matter what happens, you’ve succeeded, you’re already beginning to ‘let go,’” says Peloton instructor Ross Rayburn. “That’s one of the fundamentals of shifting toward a calmer mind and body.”

By developing an innate sense of peace, you’ll feel better during the day—which can help you feel more relaxed and ready for sleep at night too.

5. Physical Recovery

Good sleep is essential if you’re working out and want to make your body stronger. As Peloton instructors like to say, sleep is the ultimate wellness hack, as this is when our body takes out the metabolic waste and repairs our muscles. And adding a sleep meditation to your bedtime routine can help you maximize your resting hours for optimal muscle recovery by promoting better sleep.

All that said, it’s important to note that meditation isn’t a cure-all for better rest. Sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea, should be treated by your physician rather than meditation alone.

Sleep Meditation Techniques

If you’re new to sleep meditation, you might not know where to begin. These sleep meditation strategies will get you started.

Breathing Exercises

There are many types of sleep-friendly breathing exercises you can include in your night meditation practice. One is box breathing, in which you inhale for count of four, hold for a count of four, exhale for a count of four, and hold again for a count of four before repeating the cycle.

Before bed, Winkler particularly enjoys breathing exercises that include longer exhales—such as inhaling for four counts and exhaling for eight. “Breathing this way activates the vagus nerve, which turns off the fight-or-flight response from the amygdala and signals to your whole system that all is well,” she explains. “As the exhale slows, the mind quiets, the body softens, and the door to rest gently opens.”

Body Scans

Body scan meditation allows you to identify and release tension in each body part as you prepare for sleep. With this sleep meditation technique, you’ll methodically focus on each part of your body, taking inventory of sensations like tightness. Once you’ve thoroughly scanned one part of the body, you’ll move on to the next one. 

During the body scan, Winkler advises against fixing or forcing anything. “Rather, it’s about meeting your body with gentleness, acceptance, and gratitude,” she explains.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Similar to body scan meditation, progressive muscle relaxation involves focusing on one body part at a time. With this sleep meditation technique, however, you actively tense up each body part and hold it before releasing and relaxing it and move onto the next.

Sound and Stillness

Sound can be one of the most powerful cues for rest—especially when it’s familiar and comforting, Winkler says. Whether you prefer white noise, your overhead fan, or the voice of your favorite Peloton instructor, certain sounds can cue your body that it’s time to get rest and relax. “Over time, the repetition becomes a lullaby your body learns to trust,” Winkler says. “Let the sound hold you while you drift toward stillness.”

Visualization

Visualization can enhance your sleep by helping you focus on calming, relaxing images while letting go of anxious or ruminating thoughts. Try classic visualizations like waves crashing on a beach, walking through a sunlit forest, or a crackling fireplace in a library.

Integrating Sleep Meditation Into Your Routine

Luckily, sleep meditations don’t require any special equipment or expertise. But before you get started, it’s important to nail down a few sleep hygiene basics and set the stage for a good night’s rest. Combined with night meditation, good sleep hygiene can make a remarkable difference in the quality of your snooze and your life.

Top tips include:

Once you’ve covered these basics, you’ll be in a better position to relax and receive the benefits of sleep meditation. As you begin or continue your sleep meditation journey, Winkler advises finding a technique or instructor you enjoy. “It’s important to choose a meditation voice, tone, or style that feels comforting to you,” she says. Perhaps you prefer a body scan meditation, radiate towards a certain Peloton instructor, or have bookmarked one guided sleep meditation that never fails to help you doze off. Discover what you like, find rewarding, and ultimately works for you.

“Enjoyment is the reward, and it also allows the practice to gently carry you into dreamland,” Winkler says. “When your routine feels good, your body naturally begins to relax. Ease follows enjoyment, and rest follows ease.”

Get Started with Sleep Meditation

A good night’s rest starts with a calm mind—and sleep meditation might just be your ticket to dreamland. “Sleep is sacred, and your meditation practice can be the doorway to it,” Winkler says. Yet sleep meditation isn’t just a conduit to getting a good night’s rest; it’s also a great way to treat and honor yourself at the end of the day.

Of course, you can try night meditations on your own, but there are tons of guided sleep meditation classes available on the Peloton App that make the practice seamless. You can also check out Peloton’s Power of Sleep program to learn first-hand how meditation can pave the way to better Zzzs.