Counting Meditation for Sleep

About This Meditation

Counting practices for sleep are among the oldest and most universal approaches to insomnia, from the proverbial counting sheep to the sophisticated numerical meditations of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The counting meditation for sleep modernizes this ancient approach with techniques informed by cognitive behavioral science. The reason counting works for sleep is twofold: it occupies the verbal-analytical mind with a task just boring enough to induce drowsiness, and it creates a rhythmic pattern that naturally slows brainwave frequency toward the theta waves of light sleep. However, simple counting often fails because it is too easy—the mind quickly goes on autopilot and returns to worrying. This meditation uses variable counting patterns that require just enough attention to prevent autopilot while remaining too monotonous to sustain wakefulness. The patterns include counting backward from three hundred by threes, alternating between two different counting sequences, and counting breaths with a restart protocol that resets the count each time the mind wanders. Each pattern is progressively more sleep-inducing than the last. Research on cognitive tasks and sleep onset has shown that tasks with moderate cognitive demand produce faster sleep onset than either no task (which allows worry) or high-demand tasks (which maintain alertness). The fifteen-minute practice provides three different counting techniques; most people fall asleep during the first or second.

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