Nocturia and meditation – BionicOldGui

I, along with a lot of friends my age, can have trouble sleeping at night, especially when I wake up in the middle of the night. This can be exacerbated by “nocturia,” or getting up to pee one or more times during the night, which is common in older people. This can lead to problems getting back to sleep, especially if you have a “busy brain” that you don’t know how to turn off.

I got a tip on how to fix this from a dear friend years ago that worked well for me and I try to pass it on to friends who have this problem. It helps if you know how to meditate. You don’t have to be very good at it, you can be a beginner (I gave beginners advice on meditation here). Most people with a “busy brain” find that their mind doesn’t want to cooperate in meditation, it wants to bounce around from thought to thought (or worry to worry). Another problem during meditation is falling asleep. This is where the advice of my friend, who was also a meditator, comes in. In the middle of the night she said to think to yourself, “great, this is the perfect time to meditate, because I won’t be bothered to fall asleep.” Your mind, which doesn’t want to meditate, will see falling asleep as the lesser of two evils. Works like a champ for me.