Welcome to this somatic sleep.
Session.
My name is Rachel and I'm going to be your sleep guide today.
This is a brilliant set of exercises that you can use to promote better sleep.
They help to promote the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system,
Getting you into that rest and digest state.
We can often find with the stresses of life,
Having maybe a busy mind,
Having lots of things going on,
That we can be stuck in this perpetual.
.
.
State of wired but tired and there's a mismatch between our body and our mind when we're here.
So today we're going to make sure that our nervous system is regulated and that mind-body connection is in sync.
So we'll do these for a few minutes.
You can always come back to them.
You can always make them longer.
But I do encourage you to do this and build it into your routine to help with that better sleep.
So without further ado,
Let's get going.
The first exercise I'm going to do is I'm going to come down onto my back and I'm going to practice deep diaphragmatic breathing here.
So just making your way onto your back.
Knees can be up.
Pointing towards the ceiling.
And we can just place our hands on our abdomen here just to connect with that belly.
I just noticed the way you've been holding your breath.
Notice where you've been breathing.
And can you direct that attention so that breath into the abdomen?
Expanding the abdomen as you inhale.
And contracting that abdomen as you exhale,
So you want to be inflating it as though it was a balloon.
Inhaling and exhaling here.
It's really expanding the abdomen,
Dropping any tension away from maybe the shoulders.
Noticing how the hands are placed on the belly.
Just breathe in deeply here.
I'm gonna take a few more rounds of these.
Big breath in through the nose.
Big breath out through the nose here.
And then just placing your hands down both sides.
Just walking gently the feet out to the outer edges of the mat you're just gonna windscreen wipe your legs but really slowly here And then you just might like to also just gently move your neck from side to side.
Not coming too far,
Just gently.
Keeping the eyes closed.
Really connecting to the felt movement in the body.
Amen.
Rolling onto whatever side intuitively feels right for you.
And just pause in for a moment just to give yourself a little hug.
A little bit of gratitude for your body.
For taking time to practice.
Is soothing and nurturing.
Ways to connect.
With your body and promote sleep.
And then just coming up.
Meeting me in either a cross-legged position All you can be.
Me laying like me either in a cross-legged position or kneeling.
So we're just going to take.
.
.
One hand to the forehead.
Just placing it on the forehead and one hand just to the back of the neck here.
So you're just cupping the forehead.
You might feel this really nice.
Nice man.
Or just urge rather to move.
So just maybe swaying forwards and backwards here.
Housing yourself.
Just showing yourself the same appreciation.
I love that you give other people And then just nodding.
Your head.
What this is doing is it's helping to promote.
Vagus nerve.
Activation.
Just staying in stillness now for a minute or maybe just swaying a little bit more.
Connecting to the briar.
And then big sweep of the hands up towards the sky and just taking the opposite side.
Of your shoulders.
And just walk in.
Causing yourself.
It's cool.
We give a lot of attention and love to your children and other people when we hug them.
It's funny how we've unlearned.
To do this for ourselves.
And we think,
Oh,
Why would I give myself a hug?
That seems strange.
Or give others a hug to regulate them,
To make them feel better.
And I'm a big believer if we can't show that compassion to ourselves.
And we fully can't show that compassion and extend it outwards.
Trees for me.
Or to the most it can be.
Big brush here.
Long exhale out.
One big breath in.
Long acts out-out.
Opening up through the mouth as you do this.
Inhaling through your nose.
Exhaling through the mouth.
I'm going to just do a few rounds of.
This really nice bath work technique called Be brave.
So option to still stay in that horse legged position or just make yourself a little bit more comfortable.
We're simply going to close down the eyes with this variation today.
Is the option to take two piece fingers over the eyes,
Block off the ears to totally withdraw from the senses.
We're just going to take a few rounds of humming to the maximum capacity we can go to.
So we'll take three rounds and just simply start humming again after you've taken your first round.
So just breathing in.
And then breathing out to home.
Take a normal breath if you need to.
Taking out again,
Breathing in.
And out to home.
You And then we're going to take that one more time,
Breathing in.
And out to home.
Just slowly noticing any changes.
Maybe the outside world feels clearer.
Your internal world feels stadia.
Just noticing any sounds around you.
A brilliant exercise for toning the vagus man.
Concentrating attention.
And promoting C.
And then just now we're going to take.
A few rounds of what's called progressive muscle relaxation.
Option now just to take your fingers And we're just going to,
As we inhale,
We're going to squeeze every muscle in our body.
So squeezing.
Really clenching through the jaw.
Tension treated,
Hands.
Clenching through the legs,
Really great clenching,
And then exhale and release.
In-house,
Squeezing everything in,
Contracting your muscles.
Squeezing the glutes,
Squeezing the fingers into fists,
Squeezing the shoulders and the face.
The rest.
.
.
And then release on the exhale.
Taking one more,
Squeezing everything in,
Squeezing everything tightly.
Making a really scrunched up face and then release on that exhale.
And then just making your way now onto your abdomen.
And as long as you might be taking this fingers pose.
I want you to just now stack your hands on top of each other coming into this crocodile position.
So forehead comes towards the stacked hands and you're just going to rock your hips from side to side here.
To three massaging through the area.
You can lift your legs up.
Flexing the feet towards the ceiling and just knock your legs from side to side.
You can see more here you might start to feel more sleepy i'm feeling quite sleepy and ready for bed myself right now.
And just take it yourself.
Into a position on your spine and your back.
You can have your legs long.
And you can come down into a client.
Supported rest pose.
Now just connecting again with your body breathing.
And to finish this practice before you go to bed.
I'd like to invite you to take your legs up the wall so if you're next to a wall you can quite literally shuffle yourself.
Up towards the wall and put your legs up the wall.
If you're.
.
.
Without it all,
You can extend your loaves up to the ceiling.
Or If you have a block or a book,
One of my favourite things to do is put this under my sacrum.
And that's going to help me to fill them.
So I'm going to place it on the lower setting and I'm going to just place it on the sacrum,
Which is the plated part.
That flat triangular plate.
And I'm just going to lift my legs up into the air.
You might need to just shuffle around to find that position where it feels naturally most comfortable.
And then your palms can be either facing up to the ceiling or they can be supporting you downwards.
And just really drinking this.
So we're going to be here for around two minutes.
Option 2 just leave this video.
Calls.
Come back to it and spend longer here.
And this is really great for promoting sleep.
Helps to circulate your blood flow around the body.
Snip version.
And it's just a really deeply restorative pose.
So we're going to be here for around two minutes.
Keep that deep body breathing.
Maybe you want to flex with the feet.
Maybe you want to make a little wrist Like rolls with the feet.
Remembering not to move your head or air.
Or maybe you just want to be still.
Keep breathing,
Keep focusing on breath.
Maybe even notice the blood draining the legs.
Final few breaths here,
Breathing in.
I'm breathing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
And then gently lowering your legs to the floor.
Removing that block or coming away from the wall.
And just.
Taking some wings through wipers with the legs from side to side.
Dropping the knees in now,
So the knees are meeting each other in the middle,
Feet out to the side.
I'm just staying here for a few more moments.
And then just rolling on to a fetal position.
Either staying here for Bunga just enjoying that sleep feeling that's been created.
Or meeting me in an upright position.
On your mat.
And then just taking.
One hand.
Together and the other hand together into that prayer position.
And just thanking yourself for showing up.
Feel sweet.
Know you have a restful,
Rejuvenating and deep sleep ahead of you.
And remember to come back to this practice.
Remember to build your energy routine.
And you'll notice that your sleep improves.
The nervous system reignites.
Namaste.
