5-Minute Guided Meditation for People Who Have Chronic Insomnia

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

It’s the middle of the night and you’re awake. Tossing and turning, weary eyes staring out into the dark room. This isn’t the first night you haven’t been able to sleep, and (unfortunately) you’re sure that it won’t be the last.

If insomnia is a word you know all too well, then this post is for you. Read on to find out what may be getting in the way of your sleep, and follow the steps listed below, on our relaxing guided meditation (for when counting sheep doesn’t work).

What Causes Insomnia?

Insomnia is the inability to sleep, having difficulty either falling or staying asleep. If you experience insomnia, you’re not alone: 30 percent of U.S. adults suffer symptoms of insomnia. While many people experience a poor night’s sleep from time to time, recurring sleeplessness becomes a real problem for your physical, emotional and mental health.

Poor Sleep Habits

This includes not having an established sleeping routine or lacking ideal sleep conditions. Your body likes consistency, especially when it comes to sleep.

Being erratic about when you go to bed and wake up can confuse your circadian rhythm, which means that your body doesn’t know when it should be asleep or awake.

Trying to sleep in a light, noisy room, or on an uncomfortable mattress, will also impact the quality of your shut eye.

The fix: Stick to having a consistent wake-up time every single day, even on weekends

Anxiety or Depression

You may be familiar with that feeling of being extremely tired, only to go to bed and have your mind light up with worry. Unfortunately, it’s quite natural for your mind to wander when your body is resting – you have no other distractions, after all.

The fix: Having quiet time earlier in the day allows your mind to analyze these thoughts before you go to bed. Activities such as journaling or meditation can help you sort out confusing thoughts and help you rest easier when it’s time to sleep.

Lack of Exercise

As a reader of PaleoHacks, chances are that know just how important exercise is for the body and mind. And when it comes to sleep, science is a big fan of that daily workout to reduce symptoms of insomnia. On the flip side, over-exercising, or doing high intensity exercise too close to bedtime, can have a negative effect on your sleep, so keep the HIIT workouts for earlier in the day.

The fix: Make a commitment to move your body every day. This will boost energy during waking hours and help you physically feel the need to sleep.

Physical Ailments or Chronic Illness

Being uncomfortable in your body, or battling an illness, makes it very challenging to sleep peacefully through the night.

The fix: While this can be hard to work around, lifestyle habits may help to improve your condition and aid your sleep. Stretching or foam rolling and other mobility exercises can help release chronic muscle pain that may be keeping you up at night.

Combine this with following an anti-inflammatory diet to help heal you from the inside out.

Medications

Some medications also impact the quality of your sleep, disturbing your body’s natural clockwork.

The fix: If you feel your medication is affecting your sleep, discuss this with your primary care physician. They may be able to recommend an alternative brand that’s more natural, a different dosage, or have you take it at a different time of day.

How Insomnia Impacts Your Health

Muscle growth, cell and tissue repair, and detoxification are processes that happen during sleep. Without enough sleep, this regeneration process is disrupted, which can wreak havoc on your physical body, your hormones and your mood.

Sleep deprivation is linked to excess fat storage and increased hunger and decreased metabolic rate, and it can raise your risk for chronic health problems.

Sleep is also the time that the brain is getting a cognitive reboot, with neural pathways forming that will improve your ability to learn and remember new information.

Studies also link lack of sleep with anxiety, depression, and even an increase in suicidal thoughts. Sleep deprivation is linked to excess fat storage, increased hunger, decreased metabolic rate. It can raise risk for chronic health problems.

As you can see, not spending quality time sleeping has far more serious consequences than yawning in that 3pm meeting. But saying that you’ll “get more sleep” might not be enough, especially if it’s the act of sleeping, not the routine of going to bed, that you’re struggling with.

The guided meditation below is one that I’ve found great success with for myself, my clients and my Pilates groups. It uses a mindfulness-based technique to relax your body and your mind, and creates a good physical environment for rest.

In fact, a study in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine links mindfulness meditation with reduced insomnia and fatigue, so let’s give it a try.

A 5-Minute Guided Meditation for Healthy Sleep

You can complete this exercise when you go the bed, or to relax any time of day.

Start by lying comfortably on your back and closing your eyes.

Take a deep breath in through the nose, and exhale through the nose (nose breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms your body).

Breathing softly, you’re going to move your attention through each body part. As you think of that body part, you’ll feel it relax. Allow it to rest heavy against your mattress or the floor where you’re lying.

Starting with your left big toe, think about the toe, soften the toe, let it relax.

Now focus on the left second toe, feel it relax.

In your mind’s eye, continue to work through your body in the following order:

Left Foot: third toe, fourth toe, baby toe, all toes, left ball of the foot, whole left foot, left ankle

Left Leg: calf, shin, knee, back of thigh, front of thigh, inner thigh, left hip

Right Foot: big toe, second toe, third toe, fourth toe, baby toe, all toes, right ball of the foot, whole right foot, right ankle

Right Leg: calf, shin, knee, back of thigh, front of thigh, inner thigh, right hip

Pelvis + Lumbar: front of pelvis, right buttocks, left buttocks, right side low back, left side low back, whole low back

Ribs, Shoulders + Arms: back of right waist, back of right ribcage, right shoulder blade, right shoulder, right upper arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, right thumb, first finger, second finger, ring finger, little finger, whole right hand; repeat on the left side

Stomach, Chest + Head: stomach, right side chest, left side chest, whole chest, throat, jaw, lips, eyes, eyebrows, forehead, crown of head, back of head, back of neck

Whole Body: whole right body, whole left body, whole back body, whole front body, whole body

Sending your breath to your whole body, feel it relax even more, feel it lying heavy, so heavy as if it could melt through the floor, softly, gently, calmly. In that relaxed state, stay and rest.

Watch this video – Fall Asleep Fast Deep Sleep Meditation for Insomnia / Mindful Movement

Written by Jennifer Dene

Author Bio:

Jennifer Dene is a celebrity trainer, health coach, and owner of Jennifer Dene Wellness.. She is also the creator of the lifestyle program The Dene Method, and host of the Soulful Self Love Challenge, which helps hundreds of women around the world feel fit, feminine and fabulous.

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.

To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook

Stress Management – How to Reduce Stress with Mindfulness Meditation?

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

Trying to stay cool as a cucumber? This mindfulness meditation will keep your jets cool the next time something really fuels your fire.

Handling stress is a skill that can be extremely beneficial to your road to happiness.

From the minute your alarm wakes you up, to the second you lose consciousness right back in your bed, your mind is wandering through a myriad of emotions which lay down the framework for your habitual feelings, actions, and thoughts.

These emotions may catch you off guard or be under your control, depending on which side of the bed you woke up on that day (or if you’ve already had your coffee).

One of the best ways to manage not only stress, but also anxiety, panic, depression, obsessive thinking, and strong emotional reactivity is to practice “Mindfulness Meditation” or “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.”

A Guide to Mindful Meditation

Trying to stay cool as a cucumber this summer? This hack will keep your jets cool the next time something really fuels your fire. Don’t let life drag you down, and try to stay away from immediately turning to medicine to deal with life’s stressful times (i.e. antidepressants, opiates, sleeping pills, etc.). Taking the monkey off your back is not as impossible as it seems.

Mindfulness Meditation has been proven clinically effective since 1967, and the best part about it is that it can cost the magical number “free.”

Practicing mindfulness is bringing your awareness to the present moment without judgement of your own inner voice or your emotions. Try to steer clear of putting a “right” or “wrong” label on any train of thought or feeling at any given moment.

Instead, bring your attention to the present time, peacefully part ways with your past, and seize your future.

Your Mindfulness Meditation doesn’t have to be super traditional with mala beads, singing bowls, and/or cushions; it just has to be focused.

Though these are wonderful props which may help guide your meditation practice, what’s more important is paying attention to your bodily sensations, thoughts, emotions, and external sensations from your environment with acceptance, compassion, and patience. The more your practice, the easier it will become.

Here are some helpful guidelines to keep in mind while you practice cultivating mindfulness:

1. Posture

Maintaining good posture is a key to successful mindfulness. The right posture can improve blood flow throughout the body, as well as energy flow – together, these influence your thoughts and emotions.

The influence goes both ways, though; negative thoughts tend to leave you hunching your shoulders inward. Poor posture is also known to leave your neck and head feeling achy and may even result in headaches.

Spend some time adjusting to your ideal posture. Make sure that your spine is stacked, and your hips are level with each other. Imagine yourself lifting the crown of your head up to the sky. Shoulders should be lifting back and down the back of your spine.

2. Breath

Concentration on the breath may be one of your best tools to enhance your Mindfulness Meditation practice. Deeper breaths will help you mentally establish your presence in your meditation space.

Establishing presence means being cognizant of what is happening in the “here” and “now.” Especially pay attention to your breath as you are riding any intense emotional roller coasters, this will help you stay calm and carry on.

3. Surrounding Environment

If you have never heard that you are a product of your environment, now you have. Observing your senses and your surroundings without letting them slip past your conscious thought allows your mind to be at peace in the present moment.

Focus not only on what you can see, but also what you can hear, smell, feel, and even taste. Observing your physical senses in any given environment can improve your decision-making skills.

4. This Too Shall Pass

Your ability to free your mind from taking a ride on the negative side will strengthen as you train yourself to recognize that who you are as a person is not defined by what you think and feel. Experiences in life are ephemeral, or short-lived.

Mindfulness meditation has several physical benefits to your health including:

• Lowers your blood pressure and your blood pressure reactivity to stress

• Improves immune system function

• Improves overall mood

• Reduces cortisol in your blood, a significant hormone involved in stress control

• Fights obesity: by practicing Mindful Meditation you can discipline yourself to practice mindful eating.

Cortisol from stress damages brain structure and connectivity. Your brain is your control center. Think of the effect of chronic stress on the brain like leaving your cell phone in the rain.

If it’s just sprinkling out, it’s probably not a big deal for a few minutes, but leave it outside while it’s pouring buckets of rain for an hour, and you’re going to need a new selfie device. In a similar fashion, excess and chronic stress will slowly influence malfunctions in your body’s communication with itself.

Mindfulness is a total game changer when it comes to anxiety and depression because it literally changes our brains physiologically. Studies have found that after practicing Mindfulness Meditation, the density of grey matter in the brain will increase in regions linked to emotion, empathy, memory, learning and regulation.

It even changes the game of relationships. Couples were observed to be more satisfied with their relationships, closer to one another, and more optimistic, accepting, and relaxed when they had practiced mindfulness.

Try combining mindfulness with your other meditation practices. Don’t know how to meditate, or would like some tips? Here’s an easy 10-Minute Meditation you can do almost anywhere. Just remember to use Mindful Meditation to help anchor both your mind and body, while also adding depth to your practice.

Watch this video – Release Anxiety Stress & Overthinking Guided Meditation 10 Minutes

Written by Liz Lang

Author Bio:

Liz Lang is a Clinical Research Coordinator with the Southern California Institute for Research and Education in the field of Gastroenterology. Liz graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a degree in Public Health Sciences. She has an insatiable thirst to learn how the human body works in order to keep people healthy. When Liz isn’t in the clinic, she enjoys exploring nature, yoga, and trying new things (especially food!).

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook

How to Practice Meditation for Natural Migraine Pain Relief?

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

Calming Meditation for Natural Migraine Relief

If you suffer from throbbing migraines, try this mindfulness meditation that guides you through a full body scan and cleansing breaths to help you release your pain.

With the fast-paced world we live in, it’s no wonder that many of us are chronically stressed out. Even worse, the tension and anxiety that often come along with it can turn into an excruciating migraine. Ouch.

A migraine is a chronic disorder that requires long-term management and preventative strategies. While those strategies typically consist of anti-nausea drugs and pain relievers, meditation could offer a more natural approach to dealing with these debilitating headaches.

Migraine symptoms include pounding headaches, nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light. Sufferers typically report throbbing pain on one side of the head as well. No one knows exactly what causes migraines, but different migraine triggers include changes in weather, changes in sleep, certain foods or drinks, caffeine, anxiety, and stress.

Meditation can help with migraines in a few different ways:

• Eases stress, anxiety, depression, and insomnia: Meditation is a quick and portable way to help reduce pain and emotional tension and is an effective alternative to pharmaceuticals.

• Reduces heart rate and blood pressure: Meditation increases parasympathetic activity, reducing blood pressure and heart rate and bringing the body into a more relaxed and restful state.

• Aides in pain management: Mindfulness meditation reduces migraine symptoms by directing attention to sensory events, engaging the mechanisms that support the cognitive control of pain.

Mindfulness Meditation for Migraines

Mindfulness meditation can reduce chronic pain by over 50 percent. This is because mindfulness soothes the brain patterns of underlying pain. Eventually these changes can take root and alter the structure of the brain itself, so that patients no longer feel pain with the same intensity.

Use this mindfulness meditation to let go of your pain by becoming aware of it from an outside perspective.

Step 1: Begin by taking a comfortable seat. Place your palms face down on your thighs and sit up tall. Relax your shoulders and the muscles of your face.

Step 2: Take three deep, cleansing breaths, inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. Then, find a more natural breath in and out of the nose, and close your eyes.

Step 3: Begin to identify the source of the pain (head, neck, eyes, temples). Then, see if you can move through that pain and tension. Wherever you feel pain, accept it, sit with it, and let the body relax around the pain.

Step 4: Now, do a slow scan from the crown of your head to your shoulders. Notice and feel any pain, tension, and sensation as you go through. Whenever you observe pain, practice moving into it, sitting with it, and accepting it.

Make sure to pay attention to these particular areas:

• Crown of the head

• Forehead

• Eyes: Start with the right eye, including the eyelid, eyeball, then behind the eyeball. Repeat on the left eye. Then feel both eyes, scanning the entire eye area and noticing all sensations.
• Temples: Feel the right side, then the left.

• Jaw: Feel the right side and then the left. Let your jaw soften.

• Mouth: Start with your tongue, the top and bottom of your mouth, and the teeth.

• Ears: Feel behind and underneath the earlobes, then the inside of the ears.

• Neck: Start at the base of your neck and then move upwards.

• Entire head: Start at the base of your scalp, up and around the back of the head, and back up to the crown.

Step 5: Bring awareness back to the entirety of the head, neck, and shoulders, noticing any differences in pain. Send yourself love and gratitude. Take a deep, cleansing breath, then slowly open your eyes.

Watch this video – Migraine and Headache Relief: Guided Meditation to Relieve Pain

Written by Kelly Collins

Author Bio:

Kelly is a certified Personal Trainer with NASM, a Yoga Alliance Registered Yoga Teacher, and has her B.S. in Kinesiology from San Diego State University. She is co-owner of Roaming Yogi Adventures, a yoga and adventure-based retreat. She believes that having fun and well-rounded exercise is the key to maximizing strength, flexibility, and mental health.

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook

How to Practice Meditation for Natural Chronic Pain Relief?

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

Do you ever feel crushed under the pangs of chronic pain? Here’s how meditation can help.

If you have a hard time finding lasting relief from chronic pain, you’re not alone. Alarmingly, 100 million adults in the US suffer from chronic pain. Worldwide, over 1.5 billion people suffer from pain that lasts for weeks, months, and even years.

First, let’s clarify the difference between acute pain and chronic pain. Acute pain is our body’s natural response to an injury. When we take a nasty fall, the strains, tears, breaks, and infections can cause immediate and intense pain that typically subsides once the injury heals.

Chronic pain, however, lasts much longer. It’s often felt at the location of a previous injury (but not always). It can last for weeks, months, or even years after the injury heals.

Getting pain management may not be as simple going to the doctor, either.

According to Dr. John D. Loeger, a neurological surgeon and pain expert, chronic pain is a complex phenomenon that involves biological, psychological and sociological or environmental factors dynamically interacting with each other. This makes diagnosing difficult and may explain why many treatments often leave us needing more.

Typical western doctors are not trained to give advice on patients’ lifestyles, relationships, social lives, careers, environment or mental states. Most doctors are trained to prescribe narcotic drugs, therapies, and surgery to address physical symptoms. These treatments are beneficial in certain circumstances but, as we now know, there are many other factors to consider.

Simply prescribing pain medication ignores the psychological, emotional, and social aspects of pain, and long-term dependency on pain meds – especially opiates – can wreak further havoc on a person’s mental and physical health.

The good news is that there are healthy ways you can minimize chronic pain that may prevent the need for surgery or harsh narcotics. Exercise, relaxation, and distraction techniques all help, but meditation can significantly improve the perception of pain in adults.

Research shows that meditation impacts our chronic pain in multiple ways:

1. It’s quick and powerful. A study by Wake Forest University showed that participants who practiced mindfulness meditation for three 20-minute sessions, spread over three days, had significantly reduced pain compared to other cognitive techniques that were used.

• It’s relief that lasts. In this same study, researchers discovered that patients’ who meditated had a reduction in their perception of pain even after the sessions concluded. That means pain can continue to decrease long after meditation is over.

• It’s more effective than distracting or relaxing alone. When compared with activities that distract our minds (like solving a math problem), or relaxing (like lying down on a sofa or listening to music), meditation rules the roost. A few minutes of sitting in meditation far outweighs the benefits of other cognitive pain relief techniques by a whopping 40%!

So, although meditation may not be a cure-all for chronic pain, it does provide meaningful relief that lasts.

But how does it work, exactly? Quite simply – meditation is a powerful stress and tension reliever. It helps the body relax, heal and release stored emotions, which may have a lot to do with chronic pain.

Meditation helps us two-fold:

1. It kicks long-held stress and tension to the curb. Meditation activates your body’s internal healing and relaxation mechanisms while allowing stored thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations to be released. When we sit to rest in meditation, our minds become busy with thoughts. That’s our body’s way of releasing old emotions and tension.

This is why it’s so important to allow the thinking process to occur and welcome your experience without judging or straining against it. When we take this welcoming approach in our meditation, the immune system, blood pressure, parasympathetic nervous system, and circulation are improved. Meanwhile, our muscles and fascia loosen to allow proper circulation.

• It rewires our brain to release pain. Meditating helps us create and reinforce positive neural connections in four areas of the brain used in pain processing: our primary somatosensory cortex, anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex and our prefrontal cortex. This drops our perceived pain intensity faster than you can say, “Let it all go.”

When we sit in an act of meditation, we feel happier, in less pain and in more control of our mind-body system. The best news is, it’s completely free, anyone can do it (including you) and it’s 100 percent natural with virtually none of the adverse effects of surgery and narcotics.

How to Practice Meditation for Natural Chronic Pain Relief?

An easy way to start is by spending five to ten minutes resting on a chair with your spine erect, feet on the floor and palms resting on your lap. Set a timer for how long you’d like to meditate.

With eyes open or closed, welcome everything in your experience. Thoughts, emotions, sounds, sensations and, instincts – all is OK. Your job is to simply notice what is, without trying to control any of it.

Your breath is an easy place to begin. Notice your inhale and exhales, as well as the spaces between each. Allow your breath to soothe you as you notice the physical sensations of your breathing.

Become curious about the rhythm, depth, and essence of your breath. After a few minutes, you may want to close your eyes and notice the sense of relief you feel. Continue with this gentle awareness for the next few minutes.

It’s as simple as that! Pick up this daily practice and your body and brain will surely thank you.

Watch this video – Healing Meditation For Pain Relief. 10 Minute Guided Practice

Written by Leah Santa Cruz

Author Bio:

Leah is a Meditation and Mindfulness Coach, who specializes in helping women in the workforce lead joyous lives. Her background in modern Psychology and neuroscience alongside trainings in ancient practices allows her to provide useful tools that actually work and are easy to integrate within a busy lifestyle.

Her mission is to help women uncover more love, joy, harmony and intimacy within themselves and with others, the foundation for all happiness. You can find out more about Leah’s meditation coaching here.

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.

To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook