Whole Body Breathing For Sleep | Restoring Meditation

This is a restoring meditation to help calm your mind and improve sleep quality, by releasing tension through the whole of your body. The meditation involves gentle music, breathing and full-body relaxation to nurture your body with deep rest, to help you wake up feeling fully rested, restored and refreshed.

Transcript

This is a meditation to help calm your mind and improve sleep quality by releasing tension through the whole of your body.

When you're ready get really comfortable lying on your back before we begin take a big full body yawn and stretch it might feel good to yawn your jaw from side to side releasing tension in your jaw muscles roll your shoulders up and then down and back shoulders relaxing down away from your ears just feel your legs stretching away from you feet falling outwards make any adjustments you need to get as comfortable as possible and resting your hands wherever feels most natural close your eyes coming into stillness when you're ready bring all of your awareness to your breath notice the sensations of the breath coming in through your nose breathing out through your nose or your mouth do whichever feels more natural notice the sensations you feel in your body with each inhale and each exhale see if you can feel the movement of your ribcage as you breathe notice the temperature of the air you might be able to feel the coolness of the in-breath and warmth of the out-breath the air warmed by your body feel the breath flowing into your body in a peaceful way allowing the breaths to become a little slower a little deeper a little deeper and a little smoother with each breath sense your chest rising with the in-breath falling with the exhale feel your shoulders relax and release with the falling breath imagine you can breathe into your forehead and feel your forehead soften imagine your forehead and forehead soften muscles relaxing over the brow bone feel an openness and a softness in the space between your eyebrows breathing into this space imagine you can breathe into the bridge of the nose behind closed eyelids feel your focus soften imagining the eyes bedding down in their sockets resting imagine the skin of your eyelids softening creating an extra layer of comfort letting your tongue just rest at the bottom of your mouth feeling an openness a softness in your jaw teeth resting apart inside of the mouth soft softening the chin just allowing the breath to gently flow any efforts in the muscles in your face just dissolving and disappearing softening all the way to the hairline back of the head resting front of the throat softening follow the breath from the tip of your nose down into your throat all the way into your lungs feeling the center of your chest swell and notice how your body responds as you slowly gently let the breath go the space in the middle of your chest gently expanding and returning feel a gentleness a softening in the center of your chest breath nurturing the space imagine the skin softening over the rise and the fall of the ribcage skin softening over your collarbones muscles between your ribs gently swelling with the in-breath and releasing with the exhale you might want to imagine that the sides of your ribs are like the gills of a fish gently opening as they draw the breath in and softly closing with the exhale breath nurturing the sides of your torso inviting space to the sides of your body with the in-breath sides of your body softening with the exhale imagine breathing into the back of your lungs opening and softening the space between your shoulder blades back releasing and softening imagine the breath coming all the way into your belly belly swelling with the inhale breath nurturing the space inside your torso see if you can feel the muscles at the base of your pelvis softening and relaxing as you breathe imagine you can breathe into your tailbone at the base of your spine muscles in your lower back letting go of holding letting go of holding you might like to imagine there's a cushion between each vertebra that gently expands with the in-breath as you inhale the breath travels all the way up to the top of your neck creating a sense of comfort and ease in the spaces between the bones in your spine on the exhale the breath gently flows down your spine back to your tailbone feeling a sense of softening with the out-breath a sense of comfort and ease as the breath swells cushioning the spine feeling a sense of softening through the whole of your back as each exhale slowly flows back to your tailbone letting go of any feeling of holding or gripping in the back of your body knowing that the bed will support you if you let go completely invite the breath to pause and rest in your neck just for a moment at the top of the inhale releasing the base of the skull back of your head releasing exhale flowing back down your spine back to your tailbone whole body softening with the exhale skull bones heavy feel the back of your head soften muscles softening at the base of the skull allowing a heaviness to spread down the back of your body feeling all the muscles in the back of your neck softening imagine breathing into the palms of your hands and notice the peacefulness breath softly flowing as your focus rests in the palms of your hands softening and relaxing all the muscles and bones in your hands tension melting flowing out of your fingers and thumbs a sense of softening along the length of your arms from your shoulders to your elbows to your wrists the tips of your fingers imagine your arm bones becoming heavier allowing the muscles to soften a little bit more with every breath a welcome heaviness and sleepiness in your arms in your arms inhale flowing all the way up to your shoulders and back to the tips of your fingers tips of your thumbs allow your awareness to scan from your hips all the way to your feet just slowly noticing anything you can feel in the tops of your thighs your knees your shins the backs of your legs your ankles noticing sensations in your feet imagine you can send your breath into your feet the breath carrying a sense of nurturing calm into the soles of your feet the tops of your feet toes imagine the breath making its way into all the muscles tendons and bones in your feet releasing tension along the length of your legs like bones heavy a welcome heaviness and sleepiness tension drifting out through your toes at the bottom of the exhale just allowing the breath to gently flow whole body letting go and softening and bringing your awareness to your body as a whole imagine your whole body is breathing with the inhale the breath breathes into every part of you from the tips of your toes the tips of your fingers the top of your head whole body bathed in waves of calm and rest breath gently flowing through you through your muscles your bones every cell in your body nurtured by the breath without you needing to do anything as you're filled and empty your feet rest in the spaciousness that the breath leaves behind noticing a spaciousness spreading through the whole of your body every cell in your body letting go becoming a little bit sleepier with every breath feeling a sleepiness and a heaviness in the whole of your body allowing yourself to float softening into a natural stillness i'm going to leave you resting here the music will continue wishing you a peaceful rest restoring sleep

Reviews

Gentle voice. This meditation helped me get back to sleep. Thank you. 🙏🏼😴

Love all Caroline’s meditations, I start yawning as soon as I hear her voice! 😊 🌟