Take Me To Bed - Nighttime Yoga Nidra For Sleep

For all the tired souls,

the early wakers,

the can’t-drop-off-to-sleepers,

the people that are woken through the night by kids and pets,

the people whose minds are just too busy,

the folk whose lives are so full they barely find time to rest…..

THIS IS FOR YOU.

It’s a Yoga Nidra meditation to gently guide you from scattered back to yourself where you can rest in completeness.

Transcript

My name is Pip Roberts and this yoga nidra is intended to soothe you to sleep,

To gather your whole self into a place of deep rest so you may wake rejuvenated,

Revitalized and feeling good.

I invite you to find yourself laid comfortably,

However that is for you.

Perhaps traditionally we may lay on our backs,

But I know this isn't how many of us sleep.

So find your way to a comfortable sleeping position.

Use your pillows,

Your blankets,

Feel your way towards being comfortable.

And take your time with this.

Settling into rest is possibly the most important part of resting.

So don't feel hurried.

Listen to your body and feel your way to what works for you in this moment.

And whilst you're settling,

Perhaps you take an inhale softly through the nose.

And let the exhale out.

Maybe it's a sigh.

Maybe it's something louder through the mouth.

And if that felt good for the body,

If that felt needed at all,

Maybe do it a couple more times.

And once you've released any sounds that you don't need to hold,

Again focus on the whole body.

Is there any part of you that could be more comfortable right now?

Move towards that comfort.

Begin to settle using the breath really simply.

Soft inhales in through the nose.

And we might find a gentle and natural lengthening to the exhale.

We're not trying to breathe every single bit of breath out of us.

We just find a subtly longer exhale.

This calms the whole system.

Gentle inhales and soft exhales.

We might say to ourselves,

I am ready to sleep.

Say that three times.

Allow those words to land through your whole body.

This is a practice to help you return from the scattering of life,

The excitement of life.

And come back to yourself where you can rest in completeness,

In your wholeness.

We're going to start with a little movement of the head.

So for a moment,

Really allow your head to find its weight.

Allow your head to meet whatever supports it.

Feel the weight of the skull,

Of the brain.

Soften the jaw,

Maybe find a little space between the upper and the lower lip.

And from there,

Perhaps there's a really slow roll of the head,

Side to side.

Maybe it takes a couple of seconds to roll it to the right.

And then once you've explored that,

Take your time and allow the head to roll over to the left.

This really slow roll,

Side to side.

Again,

Allowing the head to find its weight.

Really softening into the support of what it is that holds you.

Allowing the neck to release.

We might get a sense of the weight of the brain inside the skull,

Being what pours the brain side to side.

Almost like the brain is listing within the skull.

And it rolls you side to side.

And then perhaps that movement steadies,

Maybe it slows to a stop.

And we'll bring our awareness to our actual brain,

The organ brain itself.

And rather than using the front of the brain,

We're going to allow ourselves to drop into the back of the brain for this practice.

The sensory brain,

The feeling.

And using the back of the brain,

We're going to begin to connect to various parts of the body.

So getting a sense of the very top of the skull.

The sides of the skull.

The very back.

And again,

The back of the brain is going to bring its awareness to the whole of the face.

To the forehead.

To both eyebrows.

To both eyeballs.

Perhaps we can allow those eyeballs to soften back into the sockets.

Sensing into that space between the eyebrows.

The very tip of the nose.

The lips.

All of your teeth.

The jaw.

The front of the throat.

The back of the neck.

The shoulder blades.

The space between the shoulder blades.

Both upper arms.

The insides of both elbows.

The lower arms.

And both hands.

And feeling into the upper chest.

Around the collarbones.

Sensing into the whole ribcage,

Front and back,

And sides.

The front of the belly.

And the abdomen.

Both sides of the waist.

The upper back.

The mid-back.

And the lower back.

Can we find our way to feel into all of our vital organs that lie inside us?

Deep in the torso.

Perhaps we can feel them moving with the breath.

And an awareness of the hips.

The upper parts of both legs.

The knees.

The lower legs.

And the feet.

Finding an awareness of the whole body,

All together.

The whole body,

All together.

Feeling the whole body,

All together in place.

Your complete self.

Feeling the body rising and falling.

The parts of you that are loud.

And the parts of you that are quiet.

Parts of you that are moving.

The parts of you that lie still.

Your whole self.

Your complete self coming to rest.

We're going to use our imaginations.

We're going to take the cells that are facing up towards the ceiling or the sky.

That top layer of cells.

And using our imaginations,

We're going to allow ourselves to sense fully into these cells.

So we might feel,

We might see.

We might hear.

There might even be a scent.

Colours.

This top layer of cells are going to settle.

Settle towards the cells that lie underneath them.

The middle layer of cells.

Getting a sense of the topmost layer of yourself.

Settling and meeting that mid-layer of yourself.

These cells coming into community with one another.

And resting into place.

And once that top layer has found their way into the mid-layer and rested there.

The mid-layer of cells are going to do the same.

They'll settle and they'll find support in the under-layer of cells.

The cells that are meeting whatever it is that is supporting you.

And as this mid-layer of cells settle and find their place.

Again,

They come into community with the cells just underneath them that support them,

That hold them.

And they too,

Rest into their place.

And you're just getting into how it feels as your cells settle and rest into place.

And then that final layer of cells,

That under-layer of cells.

The cells that are meeting whatever it is that you're laid on,

Whatever it is that supports you.

These cells again,

They find their weight in gravity.

And with the weight of the top layer and the mid-layer on top of them.

They settle into the support of where you rest.

The whole body finding itself resting into itself.

And what begins to descend within you as all your cells begin to rest into one another.

And this sense of rest spreads through the whole body.

This returning back to yourself,

Where you might begin to rest in completeness.

The cells finding their weight in gravity and settling deep into rest.

The breath still soft.

You don't need to consciously breathe.

Allow this resting body to breathe you.

Sensing how it is to be in a rested body.

And if quietness descends,

Allow that quietness to carry you to sleep.

Allow the cells meeting the cells and resting into one another to carry you off into sleep.

Sweet dreams.

May You Be Happy!

May You Be Happy!

May You Be Happy!

May You Be Happy!

May You Be Happy!

May You Be Happy!

May You Be Happy!

May You Be Happy!

May You Be Happy!

May You Be Happy!

May You Be Happy!

Reviews

I slept! I woke at 0300. Could not get back to sleep. One of those moments when everything had to come out for review and remind me of the obstacle they present in my current life. I picked your track…and off to sleep I fell. Thank you, so much. I will be revisiting 🙏

After waking from insomnia and falling back to sleep after doing this meditation I was able to sleep straight through till the morning!

Fell asleep quickly
Thank you

Lovely reminders and visualizations of settling into the body and into gravity

Really grounding nidra delivered with a soothing voice. Thank you! 🙏