Sometimes When I Can't Sleep

This is a calming yet engaging children's story with breathing and body relaxation. It is a soothing visualisation of mum reading a bedtime story, a child gently stroking a ginger cat, a nice warm bath, making delicious cookies, and a visit to a beautiful beach. The music in the end helps listeners fall asleep.

Transcript

Hello boys and girls,

My name is Anna and I am delighted to read this story to you that I wrote for my kids.

I don't know about you but my children sometimes struggle to fall asleep at bedtime and I thought that this story might help them.

In this story I ask you to take some deep breaths and to pay attention to your own body.

Those are elements of what's called mindfulness,

You might have heard about it before and mindfulness is known to help people relax,

Wind down and even fall asleep.

I hope you enjoy the story.

Sometimes I lie in bed and just can't fall asleep so I take some deep breaths and I focus on my chest going up and down with my breathing and then I take a few more breaths.

Sometimes when I can't sleep I ask my mum to read me a bedtime story.

She sits on the edge of my bed,

Sometimes lies next to me and she holds my hand.

She reads in her soft,

Quiet voice,

Quite slowly,

Gently,

Exactly the way it is soothing for me.

She reads as if she was reading to a baby but I don't mind too much,

It is so comforting to listen to her.

Before we start mum always tells me to curl up my toes and squeeze them hard,

Hold one,

Two,

Three and relax.

So I curl up my toes and squeeze them hard and I hold one,

Two,

Three and I relax.

I relax my toes and my whole feet and my entire body and I breathe.

Then I make two tight,

Powerful fists,

I squeeze as if I was holding onto my very favourite toy that my sister is trying to snatch away and I breathe and I hold in and out and I relax my fingers and hands.

If I am not asleep by then I give myself the tightest of hugs that shows how much I love myself.

I wrap both my arms around myself thinking I love you.

It feels a little funny at first especially that I don't love myself all the time.

For example when I make a mistake I don't exactly love myself but I still say it and try to mean it.

I love you dear me even if you do silly things sometimes or misbehave.

I did my best today,

I am good and I deserve to be loved.

Now my arms are resting on my sides alongside my body.

I am relaxing my whole body,

Letting it settle comfortably on the bed,

Breathing and breathing and breathing,

Noticing how my body is feeling now.

My mum says that if I breathe deeply like this,

Deep breath in and a slow full breath out at least five times,

I will be giving my body a sign that it is ok to wind down and out,

That it is ok to slow down,

Take it easy and sleep.

Sometimes when I can't sleep it is because I have something important on my mind.

I don't know if it happens to you but sometimes I just can't stop thinking when I am trying to sleep.

Last Monday for example I had a show and tell that I just couldn't wait for.

I was also a little nervous I would forget to bring all the things that I needed.

I really didn't want to forget anything on an important day like the show and tell day.

As soon as it was announced I knew I was going to bring my hamster to show off his amazing ability to climb the walls of his cage and they then drop himself down just for fun.

He really does that.

So on the night before I took out my whiteboard and I wrote in capital letters take hamster and cage to school.

Of course it is much more fun to show the tricks he can play not just talk about them and the hamster cannot show anything with no cage of course.

I have written it down and I will be able to see it as soon as I wake up.

What a relief I could finally stop worrying about forgetting to bring the cage or the hamster.

But wait what if my sister erases the note before I wake up?

Oh well I better use a pen and a post it note next time.

Sometimes when I can't sleep I stroke my ginger cat.

She is lying by my side on the bed right now.

She is stretching sleepily on the comfy sheets and purrs loudly in my ear.

I love how warm and soft she feels.

She's got long shiny fur that feels just like velvet or like the softest white most fluffy cotton wool you have ever felt.

I stroke her smooth fur as I am lying in my bed and I enjoy this feeling of softness and warmth.

She makes me feel safe and loved my kitty.

She breathes slowly it is kind of nice to feel her tummy going up and down under my hand.

Up and down she is breathing so softly.

Oh wait she is fast asleep.

I'm going to go get her.

I'm going to go get her.

I'm going to go get her.

I'm going to go get her.

Sometimes when I can't sleep I think of a warm bath.

A bath tub filled with soothing warm warm water up to the brim so you can dive in and get wrapped up in the thick layer of foam.

It smells deliciously of strawberries and chocolate.

I take a deep breath in.

I carefully put my feet in the bath tub.

The water feels a little too hot at first but then I get used to it after a few moments and I go in.

My body relaxes as I immerse myself in the soft now pleasantly hot water.

First my thighs then my back and my shoulders.

I lie comfortably in the bath stretch out and feel every smallest part of my body soften.

I breathe in as deeply as I can to fill my lungs with this yummy sweet scent of strawberries and chocolate.

I keep breathing.

I breathe out fully.

The bubbles fly up in the air like light sparkly snowflakes.

I watch them as they go up and slowly and gently drop back into the bath.

I continue breathing and blowing on the bubbles.

I make different shapes in them with my breath.

The bubbles glisten in the soft light of the bathroom with all the beautiful colours of the rainbow.

When I look up close I can see very well the golden yellow,

The bright red,

The deep deep blue and the stunning purple.

The small piles of bubbles stuck to the edge of the bathtub look just like light fluffy snow.

I feel like grabbing handfuls of them and stuffing them in my mouth.

I breathe.

When I can't sleep I think of delicious food.

Delicious cookies I sometimes make with my mum.

First we put on our favourite music.

We measure cups of soft fluffy flour into a large glass bowl and we watch it fly up everywhere like fine magic dust.

We heat up the butter in the saucepan and we watch as it slowly turns into golden bubbly liquid.

We add spoonfuls of brown crumbly sugar into the batter one by one.

I mix carefully as the sugar slowly melts.

As we add all the ingredients together I put my hands in the soft inviting mixture.

It's warm and it's easy to form little balls with it.

So I roll and I roll the little balls between my fingers and squash gently to make flat,

Perfectly round cookies.

Yum!

Sometimes when I can't sleep I think of the beach.

I imagine a beautiful Saturday morning,

Blue skies,

Not a single cloud in sight.

A gentle breeze is messing up my hair,

It's blowing it all over my face.

It tickles a little and feels quite nice.

It is the kind of day that is just perfect for sand bathing and swimming.

I step onto the warm soft sand.

Its colour is not exactly yellow but somewhere between yellow and goldish brown.

The sand is fine with grains as tiny as dust but there are some small stones that I can see in places.

My feet sink into the sand every time I take a step.

It covers my toes and then it covers my whole foot.

Very slowly I walk towards the sea.

I can hear the waves getting louder and louder.

The sea is sounding quite rough.

It isn't easy to walk on the sand.

It takes effort and I can feel myself breathing faster.

I stop for a moment and place my hand on my chest.

My heart is beating so fast.

I decide to lie down on the soft warm sand and take a rest.

I take a few deep breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth slowly.

I can feel my breathing slow down and become deeper.

I just lie there and I feel the sand underneath my body.

There is nothing I have to do.

There is nowhere I have to rush to.

Nothing to worry about.

My back,

My arms and shoulders are soft like the sand and comfortable.

I let my body relax.

My muscles soften.

I wiggle my legs a little to help them rest.

They always work so hard carrying me.

I open my hands and relax my fingers.

I breathe in the fresh air.

I breathe and I breathe more until I fall asleep.

I close my eyes and I open my eyes.

I close my eyes and I close my eyes.

I close my eyes and I close my eyes.

I close my eyes and I close my eyes.

I close my eyes.

I close my eyes and I close my eyes.

I close my eyes and I close my eyes.

I close my eyes and I close my eyes.

I close my eyes and I close my eyes.

I close my eyes and I close my eyes and I close my eyes and I close my eyes.

I close my eyes and I close my eyes and You

Reviews

I love this meditation! When I first listened to it, I listened to it almost 1000 times :)
It helped me relax. Thank you so much!
Matilda, 6 :)

Thank you for meditation I'm feel like my mom voice it's was good