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meditation

We’ve all been there. It’s 1am. You’re lying in bed, the idea of sleep a distant dream because your mind is absolutely buzzing. You’re thinking about the stupid thing you said yesterday. The week before. A year ago. Why did you make that decision? What if that important thing doesn’t work out? What if someone hears about that thing that you said/did/caused?

It can feel impossible to surface from these thoughts, to gain perspective and clarity from your own over-thinking. But it’s so important to learn how to stop these thought processes in their tracks to protect our mental health. Our minds know the well-worn paths of these worries and jump from thought to thought if we don’t start to find ways to control them. The use of methods like mantras and sleepy teas have become increasingly popular as a method to slow down and focus our minds when they begin to spiral. But mantras are are usually short, grounding phrases, like ‘all is well’, ‘calm down’, ‘I am at peace’.

Sometimes we feel the need for longer-term methods that address the exact thought process our minds are going through. Sleep meditations are here to help. We have compiled some of our favourite meditations available on YouTube that can can help with sleep, anxiety, energy, grounding or anything you need in that moment. Here are our top picks:

Fall Asleep In Minutes…Sleep Talk-Down Guided Meditation Hypnosis for Sleeping – Jason Stephenson

Jason Stephenson is my absolute favourite meditation creator. With videos up every week addressing different themes, such as removing subconscious blockages, resetting the body and sleep talk downs, his channel has something for every situation, feeling and worry. His calming voice is great for the guided meditations where he speaks to you to aid your meditative journey and his sleep music creates deeply relaxing environments, ideal for study, relaxation, insomnia and to fall asleep fast.

Guided Meditation – Blissful Deep Relaxation – The Honest Guys

The Honest Guys have been writing and creating high quality guided meditations videos since 2009.

The meditations have one purpose: simply to try and help people. Every meditation is produced with genuine care for those people who use them because they too have needed the kind of help meditations are trying to offer others. They specialise in guided fantasy visualisations and relaxing meditation sleep music, all designed to work in harmony with your mind body and spirit to promote greater health. These ‘story’ meditations guide you on a relaxing journey to a beautiful fantasy location, designed to bring peace, positivity and sleep.

Deep sleep meditation for anxiety, stress reduction, peaceful deep sleep, deep fast sleep – Lauren Ostrowski Fenton

Would you like to fall asleep faster, sleep more deeply, and more easily? This guided sleep meditation is suited to adults, parents, children, students, and babies who are looking for help and guidance with achieving a night of deep sound sleep.

Lauren Ostrowski Fenton’s deep sleep guided meditations offer positive suggestions for encouraging a restorative, natural healing rest and sleep, together with a peaceful experience of total mind and body relaxation. Fall asleep fast at bedtime with this guided sleep meditation and wake up mindfully clear and focused ready to face your day. Suitable for all ages.

This guided meditation experience is recommended for repeated and ritualized listening. Develop a daily sleep ritualized practice and with regular listening this guided meditation will encourage positive sleep suggestion and positive cognitive sleep patterns. 

Lauren is an expert in her field and holds a Master’s in counselling at Monash University Clayton Australia. She has been teaching meditation for 30 years and is a qualified Personal trainer with certificate 3 and 4 in Fitness and has lectured in the fitness and wellbeing industry for over 25 years.

Relaxing Sleep Music • Deep Sleeping Music, Relaxing Music, Stress Relief, Meditation Music (Flying) – Soothing Relaxation

Soothing Relaxation specialize in relaxing sleep music for deep sleeping and stress relief. Fall asleep to their beautiful nature videos and use the relaxing music ("Flying" by Peder B. Helland in this video) as sleeping music, soothing meditation music, relaxation music, study music and more.

Peder B. Helland is a composer from Norway and started his channel with a simple vision: to create a place that people can visit whenever they want to sit down and relax. He composes music that can be labelled as for example: sleep music, calm music, yoga music, study music, peaceful music, beautiful music and relaxing music.

Sleep Music: Night Oasis – Headspace

Night Oasis: For when you can't sleep or when you need a little background noise. Relaxing music that helps you create conditions for deep sleep.

Headspace is guided meditation for everybody. Download our app from the App Store or Google Play and learn how to meditate, wherever you are, whenever you like. Relax with guided meditation sessions that will help you rest and reset after a long day, let go of worried thoughts with our Stress pack, or create the ideal conditions for healthy, restful sleep with our sleep meditations and sleep sounds. That's as well as mindfulness exercises for everyday situations like commuting or cooking, dozens of animations like the ones you see on this channel, and eight different meditation techniques, all taught by Headspace's co-founder, Andy Puddicombe, a former Buddhist monk. With hundreds of hours of content, Headspace is your personal meditation guide to just about anything.

Fall Asleep Fast, Clear the Clutter of Your Mind, and Release Thoughts and Worry / Sleep Meditation – The Mindful Movement

This meditation allows you to release any worries, let go of the day’s events, and allow sleep to quickly and easily come to you, by inviting relaxation into your body and mind.  Allow Sara's soothing voice to be your guide to effortlessly slow down the momentum from your day. 

This is a sleep version of one of their most popular practices and contains an elevator visualisations.  Together, these two meditations become a powerful practice to simplify and unclutter your mind and reduce anxiety and overthinking

Mindful Movement is an oasis where you can come to tap into your inner calm, develop a positive mindset and heal from the stress that’s blocking your fulfilment. They offer guided meditation, visualisations, and hypnosis as well as Yoga, Pilates and a variety of mindful movement practices to help you live mindfully, move well and feel great! They facilitate an environment to empower growth among a community of like-minded individuals who strive to live mindfully in all aspects of their lives. Guided meditation and movement videos published every week.

Deep Sleep Music, Insomnia, Sleep Meditation, Calm Music, Sleep Therapy, Study, Relax, Sleep, 1980 – Body Mind Zone

Body Mind Zone’s relaxing sleep music is specially created with binaural beats to help you feel sleepy and beat insomnia. Our ambient music makes use of binaural beats and delta waves to ensure that our music can be used for a variety of music genres, such as deep sleep music, healing music, peaceful music, soft music, stress relief music, spa music, yoga music, zen music, study music and more. We have a range of relaxing music for sleep meditation and lucid dreams that will help you achieve soothing relaxation and inspire a good night’s sleep and a state of zen. Our relaxing sleep music and healing music is beneficial, whether you want peaceful music for a power nap, calming music as sleep meditation music or soft music to study to.

Body Mind Zone’s sleep music is specially created to help you fall asleep. To fall asleep fast, our music for insomnia with its embedded delta waves is essential deep sleep music. Feeling sleepy? Use this sleeping music in the background for soothing relaxation or as meditation music after a busy day at work. Our beautiful music for sleeping is ideal relaxation music for stress relief.

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Meditation has been around for centuries, though given the stressful nature of our modern lifestyles, it's possible the practice is more relevant now than ever before. 

It can sometimes seem impossible to find the time to stop and reflect, however, simply taking some time out of your busy day to focus on yourself can do wonders for your body and mind – and it's not as difficult as you might think. 

With a huge range of apps designed to help users conquer stress through meditation and mindfulness, it's never been easier to treat your mind, body and soul to some much needed rest and relaxation.

Here's our top five picks. 

1. Stop, Breath & Think

Designed to help you find peace, anywhere, any time, this handy app offers a wide variety of mindfulness aids including 55+ guided meditations as well as a collection of yoga and accupressure videos.

SB&T allows users to tailor their session according to their current emotional needs while the in built tracker keeps tabs on feelings pre and post meditation and records progress throughout the year.

With programmes designed to focus on stress, anxiety, depression, compassion and sleep, this meditation and mindfulness app has something for everyone.

Stop, Breath & Think is available to download on Android or iPhone.

2. Calm, Meditation to Relax, Focus & Sleep Better 

With an assortment of guided mediations ranging from three to 25 minutes, Calm offers a versatile meditation experience for anyone looking to incorporate mindfulness into their busy schedules.

Users can choose from a number of topics including stress management, deep sleep, self-esteem and loving-kindness.

The app also offers a Daily Calm program, designed to help users ease into their day or unwind before bed.

Calm is available to download on Android or iPhone.

3. Pacifica – Anxiety, Stress & Depression relief

Pacifica has been designed to help users break the ongoing cycle of negative thoughts. 

The program aims to provide people with the tools to manage their stress, aniexty and depression at a pace that is right for them.

Its features a number of audio lessons, mood tracker, thought recording and daily challenges, allowing users to focus on their long term mental health goals while taking their progress just one day at a time. 

Pacifica is available to download on Android or iPhone.

4. Insight Timer

With over 4,500 free guided meditations from over 1,000 practitioners, Insight Timer is the perfect app for anyone who likes to switch up their routine every now and again.

Whether you're looking for a short moment of R&R on your lunch break, or a peacful night's sleep, you're sure to find a meditation that will cater to your needs.

Pefect for beginners and advanced users alike, Insight Timer is available to download on Android or iPhone.

5. Sattva

This app is packed with unique features desinged to inspiring users to practice meditation every single day.

Along with the standard guided meditations, timer and mood trackers, Sattva also features a heart rate monitor and an insight engine which demonstrates exacly how meditation is improving the life of the user.

Savttva is available to download on iPhone.

 

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It's safe to say it's been a crazy week and whether you're stressed about your job, you BF, or just the world (ie. TRUMP), then we have the perfect thing for you: cat meditation.

We know, we know. It sounds stupid, but many of us struggle with anxiety and stress, and this is the puuurfect thing (sorry!) to put you back on track.

Blue Cross has created the first mindfulness online meditation class which stars adorable felines and experts from The Mindfulness Project.

The 10-minute class is available online and absolutely free, so you can use it to your peril for whenever you need to de-stress.

Image result for kittens

The video aims to draw attention to how cats and kittens can put us in a good mood, and hopefully it'll help Blue Cross re-home it's adorable rescue cats.

Take a look and see if it calms you a little – just watch out for the purring (you'll know what we mean when you hear it)!

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Okay, your best intentions for that gym membership and your new Spiralizer might have fallen by the wayside now that mid-January’s here, but there’s one really simple thing you can do for better health all around this year.

Find a quiet room, take five minutes, and calm your thoughts with some mindful meditation.

A recent survey by Avonmore Slimline Milk found that 60% of Irish women believe stress is the biggest barrier preventing them from being their best self. So here’s your chance to kill two birds with one stone by de-stressing AND doing something great for your mind and body.

It’ll help you sleep
Is there any worse feeling than lying in bed trying to silence one million different thoughts as they go through your head? Just five minutes of meditation before bed can calm the mind and clear unnecessary thoughts, leading to a sounder sleep for you.

You’ll be WAY more focused at work
Set yourself up for the day with a few minutes of meditation before you leave the house – you’ll notice a huge boost in your concentration levels. Why? Studies have shown that meditation increases stability in the ventral posteromedial cortex, the part of the brain which causes those pesky wandering thoughts.

Your stress levels will plummet
You don’t need to be sitting cross-legged on the floor saying ‘om’ to reap the stress-busting benefits of meditation, you know. Just five minutes of slow, steady breathing and mindfulness can help ease psychological issues like stress and anxiety.

It’s a legit health booster
Meditation has been shown to reduce pain and beat inflammation at a cellular level, with many complementary therapists recommending it for chronic pain management.

It really CAN alter your brain
Our brain is constantly growing and changing throughout our life, and regular meditation has been proven to stimulate the growth of new brain cells. This can have any number of positive effects. including reducing activity in our amygdala, the brain’s stress centre.

It can slow ageing
The ageing process is linked to a reduction in the brain’s grey matter, but regular meditation has been shown to slow this reduction – meaning you’re more likely to be sharp as a tack in your old age.

It’s 100% free
No fancy equipment, no pricey workout gear (unless you want it, of course) and no gym membership needed. Just you, a quiet room and five minutes of your day.

It’s the perfect complement to yoga
As any yoga teacher will tell you, calming the mind is just as important as working on the perfect Downward Dog. Most yoga classes finish up with five minutes of meditation, so use that time wisely and you’ll soon reap the benefits.

Avonmore Slimline Milk want to help bring out the best in you and are giving away a month’s FREE yoga membership everyday this January. To enter check out the Avonmore website.

Avonmore Slimline Milk Editorial Header

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In the world we live in, it can be hard to find peace on a day to day basis.

The stress of work, school or college can wind the best of us up into an absolute frenzie.

Meditation has been around for centuries; but smartphones and tablets are only relatively new in our world.

However, these apps mix the old with the new for our benefit. And guess what? They're all free too.

Prepare to become a whole new, chilled out person after you try these meditation apps.

Relax Melodies

This app is perfect if you want to find your inner-zen. Relax Melodies features stunning natural scenes and has a variety of meditation options. You can also combine sounds to customise your experience.

 

Meditation Timer Pro

Meditation Timer Pro is very easy to use. Choose how long you want to meditate for and then set reminder noises for starting and ending your session so you will have complete peace for the exact length of time you wish.

 

Omvana

The app has a huge library of guided meditations from experts all around the world. App tools allow you to record your mood and receive guidance on which meditation is right for the moment.

 

Take A Break

Not everyone has time to sit for a full, deep meditation every day – sometimes you just want to take a break! That’s exactly what this app’s usability allows. From 5 minutes to a half hour, this app will suit your schedule.

 

Headspace

Beginners start with Headspace’s Take 10 program to learn meditation basics; 10 minutes a day for 10 days. Emma Watson has also raved about this app in the past. Hey, if it's good enough for Emma, it's good enough for us.

 

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We all love to believe that we are doing the best for our bodies, but sometimes we can drink all the green juice in the world and if we aren’t looking after the basics, it won’t matter.

Here are five things we should be doing for our health, but may not be doing them enough – or not at all!

Getting enough sleep
Sleep is vital for your mental and physical wellbeing. Trying to work and play on three hours sleep just won’t cut it and you’ll be left drained and exhausted in no time. Aim to get seven to eight hours of sleep a night to be in peak condition.

Meditation
Now, many of you may be reading this and thinking "no way, not for me" but taking time out to sit quietly and reflect can work wonders for a busy mind.  It doesn’t mean you have to sit cross-legged in the traditional pose we all think of when anyone mentions meditation – do it your way. Apps like Headspace can be great to help you start out.

Hydrate
Make sure you are never without water and keep hydrated throughout the day. Drinking enough water is essential for focus and general health.

Exercise
Ensure you get a minimum of thirty minutes of exercise a day. Though it may not feel it at the time, exercise does make you happy and is essential not only for physical wellbeing but for your mental health too. So brush off those cobwebs and get outside!

Plant-based love
Fruit and veggies are the best you can eat for your health – so make sure you are getting enough! Aim to eat fruit or vegetables with every meal you have and you’ll soon feel the effects.

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Yoga, chatting to friends and writing things down – this is how Aussie supermodel Miranda Kerr stays sane.

The model admitted she has struggled to keep negative thoughts at bay, especially during her very public break-up from ex-hubby Orlando Bloom.

But even while juggling a hectic schedule as well as being mum to super cute three-year-old son Flynn – Miranda sticks to a few very simple techniques to stay cool, calm and in control.

Speaking about how she deals with life’s obstacles, she said, “When I have challenges now, I feel like I sit with them, I try to look at things, because there’s always a positive and a negative to everything.

“And sometimes I’ll speak to friends, and sometimes I’ll just meditate and I’ll visualise letting it go. Meditation and yoga, and having people, as I said, who you trust, who you talk to. But also writing. I like to write, and then I can rip it up or burn it.”

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