Coaching practices for Alert Resting State Meditation
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Alert Resting State Meditation, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- A few minutes into sitting and I’m fogged-over and heavy, my head nodding, fighting to stay awake
- My body is buzzing and I can’t hold still on the cushion
- Every time I sit quietly and let my body relax I just drift off and fall asleep
- I calm down for a minute with my eyes closed, but the second I open them and step back into the room I snap right back into the same tight, tunnel-visioned reactivity
- I’ll surface from a meditation realizing I drifted off ten minutes ago and was completely gone the whole time
Practices that may help
- Working with sloth-and-torpor (thina-middha)
Dullness and sleepiness in meditation require energising antidotes, not more settling.
The Five Hindrances: Diagnosing and Working with Meditation Obstacles - Working with restlessness-and-worry (uddhacca-kukkucca)
Restlessness and worry require settling, earthing, and narrowing the attentional field — not more vigilance.
The Five Hindrances: Diagnosing and Working with Meditation Obstacles - Settling into restful alertness
Allow the body to reach deep rest while the mind stays quietly awake.
Transcendental Meditation (TM) - Expand: widen awareness back to body and situation
After the breath anchor, expand attention outward to include the whole body and the surrounding moment.
The Three-Minute Breathing Space - Develop introspective metacognition
Train the ability to notice, in real time, when attention has wandered — before you’ve been distracted for a long time.
Shamatha: The Buddhist Practice of Calm Abiding - Working with drowsiness — staying present while lying down
Use specific techniques to maintain alertness during the body scan without fighting sleepiness.
Body Scan Meditation, Made Practical - Balance torpor and agitation
When the mind dulls, energise it; when it races, settle it.
Shamatha: The Buddhist Practice of Calm Abiding - Releasing the object: sitting without a focal point
Let go of fixing attention on the breath, a mantra, or any other anchor — simply be present.
Shikantaza: Just Sitting - Continuous noting — extending the practice into daily activity
Maintain a running background note on mental events throughout ordinary tasks, sustaining the observer stance informally.
Noting Practice, Made Practical - Choiceless awareness — resting without an object
Sit with attention open and receptive, letting whatever arises in experience be the meditation object — without choosing, pursuing, or rejecting any of it.
Open Monitoring Meditation, Made Practical
Related concerns
- How To Stay Awake During Meditation
Dullness and sleepiness in meditation require energising antidotes, not more settling.
Working with sloth-and-torpor (thina-middha)
- Presence Meditation
After the breath anchor, expand attention outward to include the whole body and the surrounding moment.
Expand: widen awareness back to body and situation
- Resting Awareness Meditation
Allow the body to reach deep rest while the mind stays quietly awake.
Settling into restful alertness
- Restlessness In Meditation
Restlessness and worry require settling, earthing, and narrowing the attentional field — not more vigilance.
Working with restlessness-and-worry (uddhacca-kukkucca)
- Rising Falling Meditation
After the four steps, rest in the open awareness that remains — not returning immediately to doing.
After RAIN: resting in natural, open awareness
- After Rain Meditation Rest
After the four steps, rest in the open awareness that remains — not returning immediately to doing.
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