You can't get to sleep. Of course, you want to but your thoughts are an unstoppable whirl. Your mind jumps from subject to subject and back again. Fear and dread attach to the stream of mental discomfort. You thrust the thoughts away but like a beach ball pushed down in a swimming pool the thoughts bounce back with vengeance. They won't stop. You can't stop them. Eventually you catch snippets of sleep. The next day you wake to what feels like an emotional hangover. It's exhausting. Troubling self-argument happens during waking hours too, though night feels worse because the metal and emotional turmoil robs you of needed rest. In eastern traditions these mental gymnastics are sometimes called "monkey mind."
Back in 2004, during a conference session, a stranger—who became a good friend—told the assembled philosophers that he always had a few moments silence at the beginning of every class. I was not new to meditation, but I had not thought of introducing it to undergraduate students. Would it cross some invisible line? Could someone interpret meditation in a state university as introducing religion by the back door—hence breaching the wall between religion and state? I pondered for a while and throwing care to the wind tentatively introduced my students to breath meditation; simple sitting, breathing deeply, and gently returning attention to breathing when thoughts arose. The students took to it immediately and, as they say, the rest is history. Every class for the last sixteen years has begun with meditation and I even designed a popular for-credit course where I teach students deeper aspects of meditation and what in philosophy we now call somaesthetics—body consciousness. In other words, I teach my students how to deal with troubling monkey mind. Students have repeatedly told me that the brief pause to be still at the beginning of each class is a highlight of their week. It aids their well-being.
What, then, is the trick for keeping monkey mind in check? It's a simple practice that takes a little time to get used to, but with patience and repetition pays huge dividends in mental and emotional well-being. Monkey mind wants you to play with it. Once you start the game it's difficult to stop because monkey mind paws you and goads you and pushes and prods you to continue playing. The more you enter the game the more monkey mind plays with you.
The simple practice is to "get out of your head." You get out of your head by intentionally focusing on the functioning of your body, specifically your physical breathing. Focus on feeling the physical sensation of breathing calms troubled thoughts and feelings. In taijiquan/qigong circles this is thought of as regulating the body, the mind and the breath—shen, yi-xin , xi, in Chinese. Xin is the emotional "monkey" mind. Yi is the rational, intentional "horse" mind. Shen is the body, and xi is the breath. Monkey mind is controlled by the gentle interaction of intention, breathing and body.
So, you are trying to go to sleep but your thoughts are all over the place. You toss and turn and can't get comfortable. Try this: lie on your back, place a hand gently on your chest and a hand gently on your tummy just below you belly button. Use your yi (intention) to lie still. Become aware of your body, how it feels lying on the bed. Become aware of your hands gently resting. Be aware of your breathing. Notice where your body rises and falls with each breath. Become aware especially of the hand on your tummy. As you breath in, feel the breath all the way to your lower tummy as your tummy rises and falls. As monkey mind invites you to play with it (as it always will), with gentle intention come back to your body, to the physical sensation of breathing. After a while monkey mind will give up. The more you practice, the sooner monkey mind will go to play elsewhere.
Here is a nice congruity between East and West. In one tradition in the West we think of human being as spirit, soul (mind-emotion-will) and body. In the Jewish creation myth God creates human being from the earth (body), breathes (spirit) into human being, and human being becomes a living soul (mind-emotion-will). The intentional connection (will) of breath (spirit) and body helps soothe the troubled soul (mind-emotion).
Bottom line: Intentionally focusing on the physical sensation of breathing stills troubled thoughts and feelings. Give it a go, you've nothing to lose but your mind!
+Ab. Andy