Guided Sleep Meditations

Now you can add guided meditations for sleep to any Sleep Sound by opening the skill and then saying "Guided Sleep On". Now when you play your favorite sound, Sleep Sounds will play a relaxing meditation with your chosen sound playing in the background. Once the meditation ends, your sound will continue to play all night.

What are sleep meditations?

For many people, playing sleep music or soothing sounds by themselves is not enough to keep the mind from racing and continuing to worry about the stresses of the day. Guided meditations are designed specifically to relax the mind. They can help put those thoughts away for the night and prepare your body to get the rest it needs. Often the meditations encourage you to focus on your breathing and your body feelings or positions. This allows your heartrate to slow and your blood pressure to drop. This signals your mind and body to transition into a state of relaxation and eventually sleep.

Types of Guided Sleep

• Body Scan - This involves focusing on each part of your body in succession. Maybe you'll start with your toes. Then you'll move to your feet and then your ankles. Next you'll focus on your calves and after a few moments, you'll move your attention to your thighs. And so on. As you become aware of each body part, you'll allow it to fully relax and shut off for the night.
• Breathing Exercises - It can't be overstated how important your breathing is to wellness in general and especially to your sleep. This meditation type will have you focus on your breathing and ask you to breath deeply and slowly through a series of exercises. The goal is to relax your body and signal your mind that it's time for sleep.
• Counting - Counting meditations generally have you slowly count backwards from 10 (or higher) to 1 and then repeat. This helps to focus your thoughts and slow down your mind.
• Visualization - By having you imagine a place or scene in your mind, visualization meditations can help put your mind at ease and forget about any streses of the day.
• Silence - This meditation style has you lie in complete silence and focus on nothing or possibly one particular concept. It can be very effective in letting go of any thoughts that may try to enter your mind as you prepare for sleep.

The Guided Sleep meditations in Sleep Sounds use all of these techiques to help you get the best sleep possible.

Remember, to enable Guided Sleep, first open the Sleep Sounds skill and then say "Guided Sleep On". Then play your favorite sleep sounds as you normally would. To disable Guided Sleep, say "Guided Sleep Off" after opening the skill.

Here is the full list of sounds you can add guided sleep to:

The benefit of Guided Sleep Meditations

Meditation for sleep has been shown to improve both the amount of time you stay asleep each night, but also the quality of that sleep. You'll fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly.

Sleep is necessary for our body and mind to recover and regenerate from the stresses that we put on them every day. People who get less than seven hours of sleep each night are at higher risk for heart disease, diabetes, and chronic illnesses.

Starting your nightly sleep routine with a Guided Sleep Meditation by Sleep Sounds can help you improve the quality and efficiency of your sleep. This, in turn, can lower your stress levels, increase your focus, and improve your memory.