SuttaCentral
I tried the breath-holding technique last night. I can report that it relaxed me very fast, which was necessary at the time, and allowed me to settle into rest quite nicely.
@amimettalove, I often do this with Ajahn Brahm’s talks. They work so well on both levels.
Extremely bad sleep issues. Pretty good results.
The author is a Harvard sleep researcher. The book presents a complete holistic program based on over 15 years of research ( versus disparate tips from Google ).
Good Luck.
Yes, meditation on the breath while lying on the bed will help you sleep as it calms you down and reins in the mind which is jumping into various thoughts. However, I don’t think it is a good idea to do breath meditation . The breath is subtle and if you put in strong effort to focus, you make the mind active which will not work. Secondly, you are conditioning yourself to fall asleep when you do breath meditation.
I fall asleep within a minute of hitting the bed. What I do is to focus on the gross sensations of the whole body touching the bed. You need to put in very little effort to do this while at the same time the mind is reined in. It works well
Only go to bed when you are sleepy. When you are sleepy it doesn’t matter even if world war 3 is going on you will fall asleep.
Thank you for highlighting this sutta. I try to fall asleep mindful and aware after hearing a dhamma talk by Ajahn Chah exhorting practitioners to do so.
I am very glad to find out this is also an exhortation of the Buddha recorded in the EBT’s.
Sadhu.
(May this be helpful; if not, just let it go.)
What if one considered the sleeping self as almost another life, worthy of respect & courtesy & requisites? As another POV in some ways, with perhaps a divergent set of knowledge and experience, perhaps having or cultivating different skills & interests, having its own sense of humor?
perhaps one could make friends with this self (which may be in some ways an illusion but aren’t we all?) Perhaps, in the passing correspondance of dream recall, another ally in the Path? If one brings metta meditation or breathe meditation to the threshold of this crossing into sleep, it might be useful practice for another event horizon (death). Or perhaps one might meditate in sleep, whether dreams are recalled or not. What would be the requisites?
A gift of temporality is that things happen. One will die, eventually. Sleep can occur naturally, striving for it an untidy mind seems very hit or miss. What are the requisites for an easy sleep, or an easy awake? In kindness, one can offer these daily to a sleeping self; perhaps even then to a waking self, the life one is using.
Very directly to the OP title: lately i do not strive for fast sleep; i strive to ensure the requisites of a good sleep are provided, and let sleep occur when it occurs. When i “forget” or neglect those, i try again without clinging to the past, not worrying, not uncontent, patient & kind to sleeping self and waking self and memories of self.
