A Simple Sleep Practice

How’d you fall asleep last night? How’d you wake up? That sweet, vulnerable space between wakefulness and sleep is prime time for anxiety to take over. It doesn’t have to be this way, friends! You can fall asleep in peace. The trick is to stay in your body. Your body wants to rest. So does your mind, believe it or not. Give it a chance.

Transcript

Hi friends,

This is Morgan at Splendid.

Yoga and I'm going to help you fall asleep right now.

Lay down under your covers,

Flat on your back,

With your head resting on something soft but not lifted too far up above your shoulders.

Spread your legs out just wide enough to be comfortable and allow your toes to fall away from each other.

Feel the weight of the blanket holding your toes,

Your legs in space.

Send your arms out just far enough away from your hips.

You can have your palms facing up or down,

Whichever feels easiest on the elbows and the wrists.

Now take a scan of your body.

Start from the extremities,

From the tips of your toes and the tips of your fingers.

Light up the back line of your body and the front line of your body.

Just notice where is there sensation,

Where is there feeling,

Where is there effort.

Can you release that effort a little?

A lot?

Or does it just need to be gripping just that tightly for right now?

That's okay.

Now notice your right leg,

Just your right leg sitting there,

Laying there on your bed.

Notice where the toes are pointed.

Notice if there's any energy in there that wants to move around.

If the ankle wants to roll,

If the toes want to move away from each other or if it's just very satisfied to be still,

You can allow it to be still but otherwise get those fidgets out of your system so you can find a place where the leg can feel a bit heavy,

Really rested.

Now flex your right ankle,

Just your right ankle and press your heel down into your bed and press the back of your knee down too and squeeze your thigh muscles in,

All the muscles of your legs from your heel up to the curve of your glutes.

Squeeze all those muscles,

Just the right leg.

Take a big inhale.

Exhale,

Relax that right leg completely.

Let go of all the effort from your hip down through your thighs,

Your calves,

All the tendons surrounding your feet.

Allow them to completely relax and feel the gentle swirling energy as things simmer down after that slight effort,

The leg is remembering how to relax.

Thanks to that contraction,

It remembers that it has a choice.

You can choose to relax.

You can choose to relax.

Now feel your left leg and notice if there's any movement that wants to come out of that leg just to start,

If the toes want to spread,

If the ankle wants to look for some cracks or some cracks.

And find a place where it's comfortable,

Really comfortable and engage all the leg muscles in just the left leg.

Flex your left ankle and draw your toes back.

Press the back of your knee down,

Squeeze your thigh muscles in towards their bone,

Even your left butt,

But just your left cheek,

Squeeze everything a little tighter.

Breathe in through your nose and open mouth.

Exhale and release all the effort in that left leg.

Really let it go.

Notice the swirling energy surrounding that leg,

Really sweet.

Let it be,

Let it simmer,

Let it float and shimmer just where it needs to.

Notice it,

Watch it.

As the energy settles down,

Feel it.

Now feel your right arm,

Just your right arm right where it is and notice if there's any movement that immediately comes up that the arm wants to make to feel a little more comfortable.

Go ahead and let that happen.

Now make a fist with that hand and curl that fist in towards your wrist and press the forearm down into the ground,

Press the elbow,

Press the shoulder down like you're trying to swing that fist behind you.

Reach that arm down through your mattress,

Take a deep breath,

Squeeze your biceps,

Squeeze your triceps.

Exhale,

Release your hand,

Release all those arm muscles,

Feel that whoosh of relief from your shoulder down through the curve of your fingertips,

Allow your fingertips to curl just how they want to or you could place the palm face down on your mattress.

Now the left arm and just the left arm,

Feel that arm in space resting here on the mattress.

Notice if there's any movement that wants to come up,

Allow it to come up,

Make that happen.

When make a fist with your left hand,

Squeeze all the fingernails in towards the middle of your palm and curl the fist in towards the wrist and then press the whole forearm,

The whole elbow,

The triceps,

The shoulder down through your mat like you're trying to swing your arm behind you and feel that effort radiate through your muscles.

Take an inhale,

Squeeze everything a little more.

Exhale,

Release all of the effort through your left arm,

From the shoulder down through the biceps and the triceps over the elbow,

Through the complicated forearm muscles,

Through the sensitive fingertips,

Feel it all relax and release just as it can,

Just as it needs to.

Now your belly muscles,

Those muscles between your pelvis and your ribs,

Can you squeeze all those muscles down and in towards your midline?

Can you feel the sensation of the circumference of your belly pulling in on itself?

Especially from the belly button,

Every exhale,

Pull those muscles in a little bit tighter,

Almost as though you were about to do a sit up but don't allow yourself to actually sit up.

Just squeeze those muscles and feel them light up and take a deep inhale,

Puff your belly out and exhale,

Release all the effort in your belly,

Allow everything to melt away from the effort of that constricted waste.

Take another scan of your body and the tips of your toes,

The tips of your fingers,

Running along the length of your legs and your arms in towards your torso,

Your neck,

Your face,

All the hairs on your head.

Notice how every single hair on your head feels right now.

Can you relax the muscles of your skull?

Just so.

To feel all the hairs on your head relax.

Just so.

In a wave of relaxation,

Really warm,

Gliding over your right toes,

Over your right foot,

Your right ankle,

That wave of relaxation riding up your shin,

Over your knee and your thigh,

All the way up the right side of your torso,

Over your belly,

Your chest,

Up through your right fingertips,

That wave of release and relaxation over your elbows and your shoulders,

Through your neck and the right side of your face,

Your right jaw,

The right side of your tongue.

Feel that wave of relaxation rush over the right hemisphere of your brain and soothe.

Any quick thoughts that might be moving around in there,

Just allow them to fade away into the ether like a marine layer fog being burned off by a sunrise.

The warm rays shooting through the fog of your thoughts to bring you clarity.

Allow that clarity to exist in a place of utter relaxation and feel that wave of relaxation receding,

Leaving a sweet effortlessness through the sides,

The right side of the face,

The right ear,

The right side of the neck and the right shoulder down through the arm,

The elbow off through the fingertips,

Off over the right side of your chest,

Your belly,

Your right hip,

That wave of relaxation receding,

Leaving a sweet effortlessness in your right thigh,

Your right knee,

Your right shin,

Your right foot.

Feel the relaxation through the entire right side of your body.

Now feel that wave of relaxation begin to draw over your left foot,

Toes,

Your metatarsals,

Over your left ankle,

Your shin,

Your knee.

Feel that wave of release and relaxation flowing over your thigh,

Over your left hip and your left side body,

The belly,

The ribs,

The chest.

Now that wave of relaxation rise over your fingertips,

Your hand,

Your wrists,

Your forearms,

Your elbow.

And the wave of release up through your biceps and your triceps and through your shoulder,

Up through your left neck,

The left jaw,

The left side of your tongue and your teeth,

The face,

The ear,

The left eye,

Really relax,

The whole left side of your skull.

Feel a complete sense of release all the way through to the innermost parts of your cerebral hemisphere,

Deep on that left side.

Any thoughts or feelings that may be floating around just on the left side of your brain.

Allow that same golden light to burn off anything that's fogging up your experience and preventing you from complete and utter release to the present moment of sweet effortlessness.

Feel that wave of relaxation receding,

Taking with it any effort,

Anything that feels hard over the hairs of the left side of your face,

Your ear,

Your left neck,

Relax all the way through your left shoulder,

Left arm,

Elbow,

The forearm,

Wrists out through the fingertips.

And feel that wave of relaxation receding over the chest,

The ribs,

The left side of the belly,

Left hip,

Left thigh,

The left knee,

Effortlessness,

That release over the left shin,

Left ankle,

The left foot.

No effort in the body melts down.

Relax your face,

Melts down.

Relax your breath,

Melts down.

Feel the weight of your body perfectly supported here by the mattress underneath you.

Allow yourself to be supported over and over again.

Allow yourself to be supported over and over again.

Allow your body to be supported,

Effortless.

Relax.

Have the shoulders tensed up at all.

Relax them now.

Relax your shoulders.

You're going to sleep now.

Reviews

Thank you, so relaxing. I drifted off to sleep easily. 🌻🙏🥰

I remember thinking that I'd need to find something to do when this practice ended, but after the belly, I was out for the night. I'd say that's success.