Soothing Body Scan For Deep Relaxation

This is a guided body scan meditation designed to be restorative, relaxing, and calming before sleep. Cultivate gentle awareness in the body, as you calm the mind and the spirit. This body scan meditation can be practiced before bedtime as well as any time you would like to take some time for yourself to decompress.

Transcript

Hello and welcome. Today we will be doing a body scan meditation for sleep. So wherever you are you can start to make your way down so that you're laying on your back. Just resting there. This can be face up. Just start to breathe here. Wherever you are sensing the surface beneath you, Just start to land here and allow your body to sink in. Allow the body to become heavy and just breathe here. You noticing the sensation of the breath as we pause, As we stop and just take a few moments to calm the body down. So as we start to notice the breath, We just begin by noticing the sensation of the inhale. As we breathe in, Noticing the air as it enters your nose, Through your mouth and down to your lungs and that sensation of expansion through the lungs, Through the belly, Through the abdomen, This rhythm, This inhale and exhale. Just noticing how the breath is in this moment. One thing that may help us to become more in tune with our breath is just to place a hand or maybe both hands on your belly or right above your rib cage and just notice how your hands rise and fall with the inhale and exhale of the breath. Inhaling and exhaling, Inhaling and exhaling and we'll start with a body scan. So starting at the top of the head, Notice the sensation here. Any muscles in your face, If you're carrying any tension and just start to breathe into these areas and allow the tension to dissipate. We can start to concentrate on the brow, Allowing the brow muscles to release, The muscles around the lips, Around the eyes and even close your eyes at this point just allowing the eyelids to get heavy. Just breathing and releasing any of these facial muscles. Now paying some attention to the jaw. Before going to sleep, It's nice to just be mindful of the jaw and release any tension that's there from the day. Moving down towards the neck and the shoulders, This is also an area of a lot of tension. Just notice if you're holding, Maybe you're holding your shoulders forward or feeling that there's some sort of tension, Just breathe into the shoulders and the neck area and just allow the arms as a result to weigh down and relax along the neck. So allowing the shoulders to get heavy, Allowing the neck to release, Just breathing into these areas. Now the upper arms, Allowing the arms to release. Moving down towards the forearms, Allowing those to release as well. Moving down to the hands and the fingertips, Just any areas of tension if we're holding and clenching in the hands and the fingers, Just breathing through and allowing those to release. Moving back towards the chest and the heart area, Just breathing here. You can imagine just breathing through into the heart space, Just allowing to release some of the tension that's held here. Moving down to the abdomen, To the belly area. This might be a nice opportunity to reconnect with the breath, Just focusing on the abdomen, Just remembering the inhale expansion and then exhale, Releasing. Breathing into the belly, Releasing any of those abdominal muscles as well as the back, Any tension in the back, Breathing into these areas here. Moving to the hips, Noticing any sensation of holding, Just releasing these muscles around the hip joints and the legs, Releasing the glutes, If you're holding those muscles, Breathing here, Breathing into the hips. Down to the upper legs, Noticing the thighs, The quad muscles, The hamstrings, Breathing into these areas, Just noticing any areas of tension and just letting that go. And down to the knees, If you have any pain here, Just breathing in, Giving this area a bit of sensation and moving down to the calves, Allowing the legs to relax, Breathing here, Just focusing on the calves. Moving down to the ankles, No need to move here, But just noticing the sensation of the ankles. And then finally down to the feet, Releasing the feet, Breathing into the feet, Just allowing them to relax. Finally the toes, Allowing the toes to be free, Tension, And just breathe into the toes. Great. Awesome work. Continue to relax here. Next we'll take a big breath to seal in this practice of the body scan. So big inhale and exhale out. Beautiful. Now just noticing any areas throughout the entire body after we've done the body scan. If there's any areas that still have a bit of tension or you'd like to bring some attention to, Just go ahead and go there. Be the hips, It might be the eyelids, It might be the jaw. Now before sleep, Allowing the eyelids to get heavy, Just allow the eyes to relax. Just any areas of your body that you're holding, Just gently breathe into these areas and release and relax them. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful rest. Thank you. Cheers.