Day 6: The Night Sky

Meditation

By: Aaptiv

Narrated by: Jade Alexis

Length: 19 mins

Publisher's summary

This longer pre-sleep meditation will have you practicing visualization, envisioning a night sky where you count the stars. Your goal is to stay completely still for this meditation, making each breath deeper than the last.

Please note: all Aaptiv audio-fitness programs, including those in your Audible library, will become unavailable after Sept 5, 2019.

©2018 Aaptiv, Inc. (P)2018 Aaptiv, Inc.

Not at peace

I don't know, I couldn't get over her voice... not relaxing... then the New York accent coming through made it too much and I turned it off.

Definitely not for me.

The techniques and guided meditations for relaxing and going to sleep are ok, but Alexis' voice was jarring to me. I felt like an exhausted parent at the end of their emotional rope was demanding that I just "Go the F*ck to Sleep," as another audiobook puts it. Perhaps if she were giving me get-up-and-go orders or workout commands it would have been more appropriate.

Background music

Another day of a very poor choice of background music. As with day 5 the music was so irritating that it was impossible to relax to the calming voice.

If you fidget like me then avoid this

I'm glad others got more out of this, but if you're like me then you may want to give it a pass. I'll explain what I mean...

positives: The performance is good, with the narrator speaking in a calm and soothing way at a pace that made it easier to follow and drift off to. I did get SOME sleep after this and about half the time felt calmer/more relaxed after listening.

This guide uses mainly embodiment and breathing techniques, with some visualization. Visualization was helpful for me, i.e. once you're asked to imagine a beautiful garden; once, count sheep jumping over a fence -- I finally "got" why people "count sheep," with the combination of breath, the voice, and the image producing a hypnotic effect.

Negatives: Unfortunately, the embodiment/body awareness techniques weren't so great. If you have any issue with your body or how you process sensations, or are just the fidgety-est person ever (I am), then being asked to hone all your focus on one body part until you've categorized your whole body can be the opposite of relaxing. I found it annoying and upsetting because I have a painful few spots which this meditation brought into sharper focus rather than relaxing. I genuinely hated being directed to focus on my thumb or bizarrely, my "right fingernail" (???) and make it totally still. I tried to tune out the instructions and just be lulled by the monotone voice.

If you're a fidgeter, being told to be still just makes you want to fidget more. Also, the abrupt transitions between imagining your body being heavy like an anchor vs light like a feather were too quick to mentally achieve and unsettling because they were so different.

It also directed the listener to focus on a third eye space but without a lot of guidance about what that meant. The yoga breathing techniques were a big plus but they weren't featured long enough to help me.

Day 6

This one is pretty good. I like that this focuses on deep breathing and meditation.

Her voice is choppy, not relaxing at all.

Might be better with a different reader, but how she chops up the material is distracting and hard to focus on as you are trying to relax.

worked great everytime

thank you this was great when can I buy this? I fall asleep before it finishes almost every time!

not relaxing

I found nothing relaxing about this annoying tone of voice. I would rather listen to a book.

Body Temperature?

What was experience hot, cold? A menopausal or post menopausal woman does not need to be told to focus on hot with the hot flashes and night sweats. I could not in good conscience recommend this.

robotic

I tried the "day 2" one and it was so robotic that there was no way i could fall asleep to that. So i gave it a second chance and tried "day 6" and it was no different. I thought it might have been just that one I listened to and after listening to a second one I switched to a different meditation app so i could go to sleep that night. not pleased, not worth downloading, the only thing that is decent about it is that it is free and even still it is not worth it.