If you come home from work and the only thing you want to do is curl up in front of the TV with a bowl of popcorn in your PJs, then you need a better way to de-stress. And this is exactly where evening meditation comes into play.
Everyone can relate to the heavy feeling of stress after a long day at work. Even if you love your job, deadlines, social interactions, and expectations can create stress.
As Emily Fletcher, the founder of Ziva and trainer of Mindvalley’s The M Word Quest, says, “The mind thinks involuntarily, just like the heart beats involuntarily.” So understanding how to work your mind to the best of its ability might bring you the peace you seek.
Take Time For Yourself
Everyone needs time to recharge—that includes you. So always remember to take some time for yourself. Even 30 minutes out of your day to simply relax and decompress can do wonders.
There are many things you can do in that block of time each day that can help you relax. Some people enjoy gardening, taking a relaxing bath, or simply meditating.
Now, if you find yourself feeling like you can’t carve out 30 minutes of free time, revisit your schedule.
Can you wake up 30 minutes earlier or go to bed 30 minutes later? Is there a television program you watch or time spent online that you could cut 30 minutes out of?
The time for yourself is there, and it’s worth finding it.
Keep in mind, though, that while relaxing moments are important, it’s also important to process the things that have brought you stress. If you don’t, they will keep coming back to you, trying to work themselves out.
One thing that can help? A good-night meditation.
Not only is it a path to less stress, but it can help slow your thoughts down, allowing you to deal with your stressors in a calm, productive manner.
Benefits of Evening Meditation
It’s widely known that meditation helps get you into a peaceful state of mind. But how can it help when you come home from a long day at work?
Here are a few science-backed benefits of meditation before bedtime:
- Improved sleep quality. Evening meditation can greatly enhance your sleep. A study in JAMA Internal Medicine reports that mindfulness meditation significantly improves sleep quality.
- Reduced stress and anxiety. Mindfulness meditation is a powerful tool to manage and reduce stress, according to a report from the American Psychological Association. Evening meditation can help dissolve the day’s stresses, ushering in a peaceful night’s rest.
- Enhanced focus and creativity. Meditation is not only calming but also conducive to creativity. According to research from Frontiers in Psychology, regular meditation practice bolsters both convergent and divergent thinking—the key components of creativity.
- Emotional stability. Evening meditation also contributes to emotional balance. A study from Frontiers in Human Neuroscience reveals that mindfulness meditation promotes emotional stability, helping you navigate life’s ups and downs with greater ease.
Understanding the benefits of evening meditation is only the first step. But know that the path to post-work Zen is like a journey into a starlit sky—there’s much to discover, and the experience itself is illuminating.
4 Steps to Relaxation
Meditation isn’t some kind of myth or magic. It’s a practice that has been used for hundreds of years and has proven itself worthy of everyone’s attention.
By implementing an evening meditation ritual, you’ll give yourself the space for your mind and body to come into perfect balance. Also, you’ll deal with the things that stress you out, relax your tension, and see the world in a new light. This helps you tackle stress quickly and easily.
So here are four steps to relaxation you can implement today:
1. Find your meditation technique
There are many different approaches you can use for meditation, so do a little research and find the technique that works best for you. After finding a technique that you are comfortable with, go to the next step.
Some examples of different types of meditation are: Zen, Chakra, Vipassana, Mindfulness, Mantra, Yoga, and Transcendental.
2. Find a quiet place
It’s hard enough to control your thoughts while meditating, so you don’t want any other distractions. For this reason, you want to find a quiet place where nothing and nobody can disturb you.
Your concentration and focus have to be completely disconnected from the outside world in order for a meditation session to work properly. If you can’t find an uninterrupted space at home, try sitting in your car or walking to a park.
3. Make your evening meditation session easy
Don’t be surprised if you find the initial attempts to meditate a little harder than you expected. There are several things you can use to aid in focusing your concentration, such as special music or even binaural beats.
By adding headphones and the right music to the mix, you will easily drown out external distractions.
4. Just do it
We all have a way of planning something, but never following through. Once you find a comfortable space, just start meditation.
It’s easy to get caught up in the details and try to make everything perfect. If you find yourself making excuses like, “I need to buy candles and incense first” or “I need a meditation pillow and an empty room,” then it’s probably time to just sit down and meditate.
6 Guided Evening Meditations to Help You Unwind
Chances are you don’t have the time to find an instructor to help you get into the swing of things, but you desperately want to practice quality meditation. The good news is that you can use pre-recorded guided meditation to help you.
With guided meditation, it’s just like sitting down with an instructor and following their lead.
Below, you’ll find six examples of different guided meditations. They range between 20 to 45 minutes, so they are just long enough to help you decompress completely.
1. Ease anxiety and boost your immunity | Emily Fletcher
In her Mindvalley Quest, Emily guides you through this nourishing meditation that helps you release anxiety. You may want to take the time to have an honest and compassionate conversation with yourself about how you’re truly feeling.
2. Free yourself from depression and anxiety | Marisa Peer
This hypnosis session by Marisa Peer, the creator of Rapid Transformational Therapy® and trainer of Mindvalley’s Rapid Transformational Hypnotherapy for Abundance Quest, will softly take you into a deep state of introspection. It’ll help you free yourself of negative thoughts or patterns while shaking off the anxiety of a stressful day.
3. Drifting into deep, healing sleep | Sonia Choquette
Guided by Sonia Choquette, a renowned spiritual teacher and trainer of Mindvalley’s Sixth Sense Superpower Quest, this calming and beautiful meditation will lead you through a dreamy creative visualization. You’ll find the space within to drift into a deep, restorative sleep.
You can access all of the above meditations, plus hundreds of others, by becoming a Mindvalley Member (from $33/month).
4. Blissful inner peace
With a calming voice, this guided meditation session assists you in maintaining focus. The accompanying music helps sync your brainwaves to a relaxed mindset. And this will enable you to discover the inner peace within.
5. Healing space
For everyone who comes home with a lot of baggage from work, meditating before sleeping can set you up for a restful night. This meditation quickly and effortlessly guides you down a path of spiritual healing, nurturing your sense of joy and relaxation.
6. Deep relaxation and positive thoughts
This guided meditation clip is the perfect companion for getting rid of stress while focusing on creating more positive thoughts. You can slowly shift your mind from running down an anxiety spiral to deep rest and positivity.
Find Your Inner Peace
Finding the time to relax takes some practice, but it’s definitely worth it. And giving yourself space to connect with your needs first may power you up to accomplish your goals and be more productive.
If you need some help along the way, you can turn to Mindvalley. With transformational insights from life-changing quests, you might be surprised at how accessible your peace of mind could be.
And by downloading the Mindvalley app, you’ll get access to free meditations specially curated for your well-being. You can practice them on a daily basis to nurture your sense of deep relaxation and connection with yourself.
And as Emily Fletcher says, “We meditate to get good at life, not to get good at meditation.”
Welcome in.
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Images generated on Midjourney.
