8 Tips For Staying Awake while Meditating | Mindfulness Meditation Technique

May 23, 2021 Jason Cain

Beat Drowsiness While Meditating and Tips on how you can stay awake

Hello and welcome to the Ancient wisdom modern mind blog and today I am are going to do talk about Ways that can help you to Stay Awake during a Mindfulness Meditation if that is a problem or frustration you are having.

One of the common obstacles meditators face is staying awake during their practice. Meditation can be extremely relaxing and it’s natural to feel like dozing off. However, the more you can stay awake and aware, the more benefits you’ll receive from your practice. Here are my 8 best solutions to help you stay awake and mindful!

We’ve all experienced this before. You’ve just sat down for your meditation session. You’re feeling the relaxation seeping into your body, it feels so good and when all of a sudden, it hits you like a million fluffy clouds on the world’s most comfortable bed. You’re completely relaxed and all you want to do is fall asleep.

If this has happened to you, first know that you are not alone. Falling asleep is not a sign that you are bad at mindfulness—it’s a totally natural reaction to being in a state of relaxation. I’ve been there more times than I can count. If I’m being completely honest, half the time, I’m more inclined to fall asleep rather than to “fall awake” during my meditation.

The reality is that unless the purpose of your meditation is to help you fall asleep at night, the more awake and alert you are during your practice, the more you can stay open and aware. Being fully conscious is the core of mindfulness meditation, so it’s important to try to stay awake as best you can, in order to fully benefit from your practice.

Falling asleep during my meditation practice is one of the biggest challenges I faced particularly when I am meditating at night. So I know how frustrating it can be, especially if that’s your only time to meditation after a busy schedule. So using my own practice as a guide, I’ve complied eight super easy ways to help you conquer that frustration and achieve your best state of wakefulness. I’ve ordered these solutions in steps from what I feel you should try first. If the first one doesn’t do it for you then try the second one and then the third and so on and so forth. You can also totally disregard the order and do whatever sounds best or easiest for you, as I encourage you to pick your own path and choose your own way.

Okay, ready? Let’s go!

1. Switch positions

Most people tend to meditate either sitting on the floor or lying down. While these positions are great, they don’t necessarily promote the most wakefulness if we’re already sleepy.

If you’re lying down and drowsy, try sitting up. If you’re sitting and drowsy, try standing up. If you’re standing and drowsy, try walking. Shift your position as much as you need to, in order to achieve full wakefulness. Almost all mindfulness meditations, including body scans and breathing anchor meditations, can be done in any position. Try out different positions and see what works best for you.

Just remember that meditation is about resting in stillness, so it is best to try and choose a position before you start and stick with it as best you can.

2. Open your eyes

Many of us tend to meditate with our eyes closed. Closing our eyes during meditation helps to lessen external distractions and allows us to focus inward. However, closing our eyes can also cause us to fall asleep, if we’re tired. The simple solution to this is to open your eyes for a period of time until you feel more alert. Many meditators actually prefer to meditate with their eyes open, in order to maintain an openness. This is the practice in zazen or Zen meditation and I have a podcast “Zazen Meditation Introduction” which will explain how this is done. Follow the link.

If you do choose to open your eyes for your meditation practice, just make sure that your eyes aren’t wandering around and getting distracted by other things. You should look towards the ground and focus on one area as best you can, so you can still focus on what’s going on inside of you.

3. Walk it off

In my opinion, walking meditations are totally underrated and although your body is moving, walking meditation has a way of settling the mind in a very unique way. Mindful walking is a fantastic solution to sleepiness during meditation because it’s extremely difficult, maybe even impossible, to fall asleep when you’re walking.

It’s a known fact that walking keeps you alert. Walking improves your blood circulation and stimulates the release of brain chemicals. Walking meditations do all of that for you, while also helping you cultivate mindfulness. It’s a win-win. While you don’t want to start doing walking meditations exclusively, incorporating it into your practice a few times a week can help you stay alert and add a new dimension to your practice.

If you’re unfamiliar with walking meditation, then I also have a guided walking meditation which will guild you every step of the way. Called Zen Walking Meditation (Kinhin) and this is a 25-Minute Guided walking Mediation in the Zen tradition Follow the link.

4. Move around

This is a similar principle to walking meditations. When you move around, you immediately become more alert. This is where mindful movement meditations can be super helpful. Many people think that meditation is all about sitting on a cushion following your breath, and while using your breath as an anchor is one way to meditate, the breath isn’t the only thing you can use as an anchor. Mindful movements couples the breath with movement. Paying attention to how your body feels when you move it can be both healing and revitalizing. Plus, it keeps you awake.

Mindful movement can include gentle yoga, stretching, or guided movements. The main idea is that you use both the movement and your breath as the anchor. The movements do not have to be big or complicated, you just need to pay attention to them in an open and non-judgmental way.

A slow mindful stretch is an easy, quick, and relaxing way to invigorate the body and for those who suffer from any type of chronic pain or illness, especially those who may not be used to moving much (just be careful and take it slow!). In fact slow movements are very mindful acts and creates a great mindful meditation in itself.

5. Change your timing

If you’re consistently feeling drowsy or sleepy during your meditation, it could be the time of day. It’s important to pick a time to meditate, when you’ll be in your most awake state. For a while, I would always meditate after lunch because I didn’t want to be hungry during my practice. But I found instead that I was incredibly sleepy during these post-lunch meditation sessions, particularly after heavier meals.

This actually makes perfect sense since digestion is hard work for the body—and it’s totally natural to feel sleepy after a meal. Switching my midday meditation from right after lunch to before lunch made the difference for me. I was a little hungry, but I wasn’t tired either and it had the benefit of making the meal a more mindful event. So it worked perfect!

Also if you’re meditating around the same time every day and you’re finding tiredness to be a reoccurring problem, try changing your timing and see if that helps. I’ve personally found that it’s best to meditate before a meal, so you’re not sleepy during your practice. It might take some trial and error, but moving your meditation practice to your most alert time of day is key to achieving full wakefulness.

6. Splash cold water on your face

This is a simple yet effective way of staying alert, not just in meditation, but in a lot of situations. And I have done this before my morning meditation and I’ve found it to be highly effective.

7. Drink green tea

The first six strategies work really well, and if I’m just a little drowsy or a bit tired. However, there are days when I’m just plain exhausted. I didn’t get enough sleep or I’m completely drained from working all day. That’s when I turn to Matcha tea to help keep me focused during my meditation practice (and if you have not hear of Matcha tea before, Matcha is a form of green tea made from a powdered version of the actual tea leaves). I make a warn cup of Matcha tea and sit it beside my meditation cushion and sip it while I am settling into my practice. It makes all the difference.

I personally think that Matcha tea is much better for staying awake during meditation than coffee. It has just enough caffeine to keep you alert, but not enough to make you jittery. Matcha tea also contains an amino acid called l-theanine. L-theanine relaxes the nervous system, which I’ve found can actually help me in my meditation practice. Matcha contains up to five times as much L-theanine as regular green tea (20 mg versus 4 mg), due largely to these shading techniques Japanese farmers discovered and developed centuries ago.

8. Accept it

The last, but most powerful, solution for staying awake during meditation is to simply accept the tiredness. Meditation teaches us to accept the things that we cannot change and, sometimes, sleepiness is something we cannot change. You should never try too hard or strive too much with your meditation practice. There’s a reason why we call it a practice—it’s not going to be perfect every time, but you learn from each session and that’s the important part.

For me, in the beginning there was a period of time when I hadn’t gotten enough sleep because of work and was constantly exhausted. I became so frustrated with myself to the point of almost wanting to give up on my practice. Thankfully though, I didn’t give up. I persisted despite the exhaustion and feeling of not making any progress.

I accepted that this is just how things were for me right now and stopped worrying that I was going to fall asleep during my practice, and it made all the difference. If I dozed off then so what, it was usually only for a few minutes or maybe a few seconds and I would just straight up again and continue my meditation without coming down on myself about dozing off, and if I was feeling too tired to continue then I would simply accept the fact that I needed sleep and would lay down and transition into sleep, and sometimes this would give me a deeper and more restful sleep.

When it comes to meditation, you should never be too hard on yourself. Just take your practice one day at a time and accept each day, and each moment, for what it is—use it as an opportunity instead of seeing it as an obstacle and this goes for so many more things besides just tiredness too!

So, what about you?? Do you ever experience falling asleep during meditation? What do you do when this happens? Which of the above solutions, do you find the most helpful (if any)? Comment below and let me know!

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Ancient Wisdom / Modern Mind: by Jason Cain