Rest the tip of your tongue on your upper palate just behind your top front teeth.
Breathe steadily and gently through your nose,
Feeling your belly rise on each in-breath and fall with each out-breath.
If you want,
You can try to tilt forward from your hips just a little so that you are facing the ground without bending your neck.
Put your attention to the crown of your head and imagine the skin of your scalp there relaxing,
Softening,
Spreading.
Feel all the little hairs and their follicles flopping down,
Resting,
Letting go.
Feel that relaxation flowing down from your crown to your ears.
Feel the muscles around your ears loosening,
Letting go.
The skin and cartilage of your earlobes relaxing,
Growing heavy.
Your ears getting so soft and floppy that you can imagine them dangling like elephant ears.
Feel the relaxation flowing over your forehead,
The skin and muscles of your forehead relaxing and softening and spreading.
Feel that relaxation flowing around your eyes,
The eye muscles softening,
The skin around your eyes smoothing and spreading and your eyeballs growing heavy,
So heavy that they are resting in the hammock of your soft eyelids.
Feel the relaxation flowing to your nose,
The skin and muscles and cartilage of your nose,
Your nostrils all relaxing,
Softening,
Spreading,
Growing heavy and soft.
Your breathing is effortless.
Your nose so relaxed and heavy that it could dangle like an elephant's trunk.
Feel the relaxation flowing to your cheeks,
The muscles and skin of your cheeks softening.
Let go of the social mask that we all wear to look polite and friendly and sink instead into complete relaxation.
Feeling your cheeks growing heavy as your muscles release.
Feel that relaxation flow into your chin,
Your chin softening,
Muscles letting go,
Skin smoothing,
Chin growing heavy as you just let go.
Feel the relaxation flow over your lips,
All of those muscles softening and relaxing and letting go,
The skin smoothing,
Growing heavy so your lips fall into a pouch.
Feel the relaxation flow to the inside of your lips,
Growing soft and relaxed,
Letting go,
Loosening,
Heavy.
Feel the inside of your cheeks relaxing now,
Soft and heavy,
Smooth and spreading,
Letting go of all the tension inside your mouth and that relaxation flows to the top of your mouth.
Feel your upper palate relaxing,
The cartilage spreading,
The membrane softening.
So relaxed,
Just letting go,
Loosening.
Feel the relaxation flowing to your tongue,
Your tongue growing soft and heavy,
Spreading out in your mouth as the muscles release.
Feel the relaxation flowing underneath your tongue,
Your lower palate relaxing,
The bottom of your mouth softening,
Spreading,
Letting go.
Feel that relaxation flow down into your jaw,
The muscles,
Bones,
Nerves,
Everything in your jaw relaxing,
Letting go,
Growing soft and heavy.
Even your teeth are relaxing,
Settling into their sockets heavily at home.
Even your gums are relaxing,
Soft and heavy.
On your next in-breath,
Imagine that this breath is like an energetic snapshot,
A muscle memory of how it feels to be completely relaxed and your out-breath files this snapshot into your brain so that you can come back and find this memory of total relaxation anytime you need.
Breathe in and take a snapshot of total relaxation.
Breathe out and file it in your mind so you can come back anytime you need this baseline memory.
Breathe in,
One more snapshot on the in-breath,
Filed away on the out-breath.
Now see if you can stay just as relaxed as you sit back up,
Wriggle your fingers and toes,
Open your eyes.
If you look in the mirror,
Don't be surprised to see yourself looking 10 years younger than you did 10 minutes ago.
