Should You Meditate When Tired?

Should You Meditate When Tired?

Not all times are equally as good for meditation. There are times when it’s better to stay away from it altogether, such as when you’re drunk or after a meal

But even then, you can thrive during the meditation if you’ve found a way to make it work for you. When we explore tiredness, however, or most emotional states for that matter, there’s no clear answer on whether it’s better to meditate on such states of being or not. 

Since there are pros and cons to meditating when you are tired. For this occasion, we’ll explore whether it’s worth it to pursue meditation despite being tired or if you should postpone it for later. These reasons aren’t ranked in any particular order, they are just worth keeping in mind.

Keep in mind that it all comes down to experimentation. The best meditation time will always be the one that allows you to stay on that path without getting sidetracked, no matter how hard it may get. 

You will many times find that the quality of your meditation improves or decreases depending on which time of the day you choose to do it. 

It’s often talked about mornings being the optimal time, but even during mornings you can feel tired, but at least, it’s a way to supercharge your day and arm yourself with mental strength for anything the day throws at you.

You Need Energy To Meditate

If you want to make your meditation a completely streamlined process, it may not be optimal to meditate if you feel tired, as you may doze off

From the perspective of falling asleep, this is great, but not so much to keep your awareness, as you’re letting sleep get the best of your meditation. 

Fortunately, meditating consistently, while it can’t replace the need for sleep, can make you need less of it and you can function just as well, if not better when meditation is added to the mix. 

Of course, don’t go into meditation with that goal, as any of the gains you get from meditation are usually months, if not years ahead. But one of the strongest cases against meditating when you’re tired is how there’s a risk for your attention to be all over the place as you’re trying to meditate. 

On the other hand, this can train you, later on, to sustain your focus, since it can be trained a bit like a muscle, just like patience and discipline. 

Focus serves us on virtually any aspect of our lives, but unfortunately, a lot of us are trained from the start to live without it, without realizing the ability to lock our attention on one thing can turn us into high performers. 

However, when you’re starting out, you generally want to make meditation as easy as possible, for you to be able to build a routine out of it. 

But a direct way to train your true will is to identify the times you don’t want to meditate, or any good habit for that matter, and still go ahead with it. 

It will be the greatest test of greatness and self-mastery but could in contrast be excessive if you’ve never done it before. 

When you meditate while tired, your energy is scattered into different places, since what you direct your attention to is where your energy flows. That on its own is great training. But may not be optimal for a first-time meditator. 

Since your outlook is the bigger picture and predicts how constant you’ll be with meditation. If your first impression is chore-like, unless you have an overwhelming amount of discipline right from the start, you would more often than not fall into the majority that abandoned the practice. 

Napping Before Meditating

We’ve explained the benefits of power napping, but if you just need a small energy boost to keep yourself focused, you may want to take a power nap before meditating. 

You’re less likely to think of sleep or having thoughts get in the way, as naps can be the perfect combination with meditation, given the similarities when it comes to benefits. However, if you are like me, naps can make you feel drowsy and have the opposite effect. 

Only combine power naps with meditation if you know you will thrive on them. You may not find out until you try, but don’t do more than you can bear when starting out. 

With meditation, you have to find a balance, a comfortable sweet spot where the commitment isn’t large enough for you to be able to stick with it. Short meditations are better than long meditations if they are combined with consistency. 

For those it works for, naps are a great energy booster, which in turn, can be channeled into the meditation practice and because meditation can amplify anything you’re feeling, you may end up feeling almost like an endless energy being. 

However, you can also choose to reverse the equation. Even as a novice, allow and embrace the feeling of tiredness. After all, meditation when done over time improves your quality of sleep. 

And thus, good sleep leads to deep meditation, and deep meditation leads to better sleep, and it ends up perpetuating this cycle where you’re in a place you want to be. All you have to do at this point is hold on to this beneficial habit. 

Meditating No Matter What

If you’ve trained yourself a moderate amount to meditate and already understand how it feels like, it will be easier for you to meditate without difficulties no matter your emotional state. 

In fact, it’s one of the greatest ways to win the battle over the mind trying to get you to do certain things. 

Meditation is a commitment, but it doesn’t have to feel like a compromising one, but a complementing one. 

Anything you do after meditation usually becomes of higher quality, because you’re applying deliberate practice to said thing. 

When you learn to meditate despite feeling tired, angry, happy, doubtful, and so on. these feelings and emotions stop having power over you. 

A lot of our day-to-day is driven by these emotions, and we tend to gravitate towards happiness, even if it’s short-lasting. 

However, at times, tiredness can only be a false feeling produced by the mind, when we in fact are just feeling boredom. 

Boredom can lead to tiredness, but if you learn to meditate in spite of any emotion you’re going through, you’re cultivating genuine ownership over yourself. 

But this is difficult to know for beginners because we have to get a notion of what focus feels like. We have to get a notion of what meditation can bring to the table to help us build this resilience. 

No state should be allowed to get the best of you. As long as you maintain your awareness of any state that’s manifesting, you’ll have more control over whether that state of being has any force over you.

This isn’t something we can learn overnight. But it’s commonly seen in those who have reached an advanced stage during their practice. 

It can take years to reach this point but the journey doesn’t have to be unpleasant, that’s why so much emphasis is put on loving every stage of the meditation, no matter where you’re at, as you’re much more likely to have a higher success rate and you’ll be unlikely to abandon the practice. 

Be it whether you’re going through tiredness as much as if you’re fully energized, meditation still serves a purpose.