
Sleep Meditation App Fail
So this was supposed to be a review of a meditation app with guided meditations to help with sleep. That plan went a little sideways. Instead, I’m going to talk a bit about how difficult it is to get a habit of sleep meditation via app to stick.
Here was my plan:
- Pick an app with a meditation practice tailored to help with sleep (preferably one with some kind of a free trial)
- Meditate using the app every night before bed for a week
- Keep track of how I felt the next morning and how quickly/easily I fell asleep
- Put together an awesome blog post
Seems simple, right? I got stuck at step 2. What went wrong?
Timing
Maybe it was because I chose to do it at night? I set off on this endeavour the week of my 26th birthday and the week before a jam-packed weekend in New York, including 10+ hour overnight bus rides in both directions. Needless to say, the last few weeks of April I had the farthest thing from a regular bedtime.
Would I have done a better job at sticking to this plan if I had decided to meditate in the morning? Or at lunch? Or right after work?
The App
Maybe I chose the wrong app? I started using Calm – they had what looked like a free, 7 day, sleep meditation program. Perfect, what could be better? I sign myself up for an account, get myself settled into a comfortable position for day 1 and get a 12 minute intro to how meditation will help my sleep. Sounds great! The next day I open the app for day 2 and get prompted to sign up for the 7 day free trial, but that requires a credit card and my wallet is in my coat pocket and it’s getting late, so I decide to deal with that later.
<<SPOILER ALERT>>
I never dealt with it.
The Program
Maybe I was looking for something too specific? There is a lengthy list of the benefits of meditation (attention regulation, body awareness, emotion regulation, reduced stress, improved sleep etc.). I spent a decent amount of time trying to find a free trial of a sleep-focused meditation. Did I really need to find something that was sleep-specific? I’m not a meditation expert (shocker, I know) and I was hoping that by finding something specific I would be better able to write a meaningful piece on how meditation helps you sleep (whoops..) but maybe that was the wrong way to go.
So what were my key issues here? I would say it was the fact I didn’t have a plan that I could stick to and I didn’t have a plan B. But I’m going to get an opinion from someone who meditates regularly – stay tuned for his ideas!