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Hot take: meditation actually helped my insomnia after I called it BS for years

I thought meditation was just sitting there thinking about nothing, but after 6 months of waking up at 3 AM every night I finally tried a 10-minute guided one on YouTube. Three weeks in and I've slept through the night 5 times now, which never happened before. Has anyone else been surprised by something they wrote off as hype?

3 comments

3 Comments

taylor_young17d ago

Slammed the brakes real hard on my skepticism too. I had the exact same thing with those stupid 3 AM wake ups, felt like my brain was just wired to torture me. Started doing a 5 minute body scan thing before bed and it was like my brain finally shut up for once. The first time I actually fell asleep during the meditation I thought something was broken. Now I've been doing it for a month and a half and I've slept through the night almost every night this week. I honestly feel like a fool for fighting against something so simple for so long.

graygonzalez17d agoTop Commenter

@taylor_young nailed it, that body scan trick is deceptively simple.

gavina7317d ago

Respectfully, I see it a little different. I tried that body scan stuff for two solid weeks and it just made me more frustrated. My brain would keep waiting for the next body part to focus on instead of actually relaxing. What finally worked for me was the opposite - I started leaving my phone in the kitchen and reading a boring paperback book in bed. The first few nights were rough but after about a week my body just got the hint. The body scan thing feels like one of those tricks that works great for some people but makes the rest of us feel like we're doing it wrong. I'm glad it clicked for you though.