Old news? Yes, if you have learnt to practice a technique like Acem-meditation. But not if you have no experience with such relaxation techniques.
In the 29 April issue, the Norwegian women´s magazine Kamille writes about how to reduce everyday stress by using different relaxation techniques. The magazine includes a brief description of mindfulness meditation and almost an entire article on Acem-meditation. In an article about insomnia, the magazine interviews Cathrine Pedersen, who says that meditation has helped her with insomnia. She has practiced Acem-meditation for many years and describes her personal experience. Cathrine says that her daily 30-minute meditations are “30 minutes when I don´t have to perform at all.”
“If I feel that I cannot sleep when I go to bed, I meditate during 5 minutes to find calm. And then and fall asleep immediately.”
“I let come what the mind needs to work through, it is a stream of thoughts that comes out, without me judging it or handling it in any way.”
As much as an estimated 12 percent of the population suffer for chronical insomnia. In addition, more people experience insomnia over shorter periods due to work related stress, divorce or big changes in life. More women than men suffer from sleepless nights, and insomnia can lead to depression.
The magazine also includes a range of obvious tips for better sleep: for example, don´t drink coffee right before going to bed…
It would be interesting to go further into this. What are the various types of insomnia? What are the reasons behind? Which of them may be cured by meditation? Are there differences among the various forms of meditation in this respect? I wouldn’t expect Kamille to go into this, but still…
During meditation, the oxygen consumption of the body drops by 10 to 20 percent and hence it helps the body to attain a deeper state of rest than sleep. In fact, according to a survey 65% of insomniacs were able to sleep easily after meditation.
What has been helpful for me is to have specific breathing exercises. I haven’t looked into tai-chi yet, but I’ve heard people had some good success with this active type of meditation too.