Insomnia and meditation
. . . or perhaps I should consider naming this post Somnia and meditation. For after all, meditation and better sleep go hand in hand.
Do a search and you’ll find results similar to this:
According to a study written up in The American Journal of Medicine* all of the patients (100%) reported improved sleep after undertaking a meditation practice, and 91% of patients using sleep medication either eliminated or reduced their medication usage.
Impressive? If these stats applied to golf, hundreds of thousands of fattish middle-aged men would plunk down serious money to see that kind of improvement.
And meditation is as free and easy as breathing.
Though this is my own little thing — or better put, a borrowed and tweaked technique — and it’s quite loosey goosey — here’s my latest favorite meditation.
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of meditation techniques. A simple Internet search will reveal detailed instructions in many common methods, whether it be breath, mantra (a word or phrase), or thought itself upon which the practice revolves.
All you really need is a little time, a little stillness, and a little focus.
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* Volume 100, pages 212-216, 1996. Gregg D. Jacobs, PhD; Herbert Benson, MD; Richard Friedman, PhD
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