Sleep Better With A Relaxed Brain

Do your thoughts stop you from falling asleep and prevent you from sleeping deeply? With these 7 simple steps of mindful breath and thoughts, your body and brain will totally relax and release tension, stress and anxiety, leaving you ready to fall quickly into a deep and refreshing sleep.

Transcript

7 steps to completely relax your brain.

7 simple steps and the first simple step is to become aware of your breath.

The way I like to approach mindfulness when you choose a particular thing to be mindful of is to see if you can hold that thing,

So in this case the breath,

Just to have it gently and lightly in the centre or the foreground of your awareness and see if you can keep that awareness really nice and open and still aware of everything else apart from the breath that's happening in this moment.

So the idea is not to concentrate or focus on the breath and not to try and exclude or ignore other things that are happening.

In my experience that can create a feeling of effort and tension.

So instead just feel like your awareness is broad and wide and open and light and you're choosing to pay a bit more attention to these few moments on the breath and everything else,

Thoughts,

Sensations,

Sounds etc.

Are all still completely welcome and they'll just be in the background happening around the breath.

I'd also invite you to see if you can really feel the breath,

Really feeling the physical sensations of the breath in the body.

So I'll leave a few moments to give you time to familiarise yourself with the sensation of the breath,

Remembering just to keep the breath in the foreground of your light and open awareness,

Not blocking out anything else.

Feeling the breath in the body,

Allowing everything else that's happening to happen around the breath.

So the second step sounds a bit like a non-step,

A non-action because it's to not change the breath.

But we can make this an active,

Engaged step by realising as we breathe and as we are aware of the breath that we could be changing the breath.

So we could be trying to breathe more slowly or more deeply for example,

But we're actively choosing not to change the breath,

To just allow the breath to be as it is.

So continue with this awareness of the breath within your open awareness,

Knowing that you could change the breath,

But you're actively choosing with each breath just to allow the breath to be as it is.

Please find your comfortable minimum of breathing mouvement within your free experiment.

And the third step,

The final step for the breath is to see if you can subtly shift your experience of the breath.

So instead of thinking or feeling like you are breathing,

See if you can get a sense of the body being breathed by the breath.

Realising that you don't actually have to make any effort to breathe,

You don't have to remember to breathe or choose to breathe,

That the breath happens to the body naturally,

Organically,

Without any effort needed from you whatsoever.

So keeping the breath lightly in the centre of your open awareness,

Don't change the breath at all and experience the body being breathed by the breath.

OK,

So we are going to move on to the thoughts now and follow those same three steps but applying to mindfulness of the thoughts.

But seeing if we can approach the thoughts just as we did the breath.

Just experiencing your thoughts as another experience happening within your awareness.

Gradually letting go of that attachment and identifying with the content of the thoughts.

We want to be just,

For the first step,

Just being aware of the thoughts,

Just aware of that process and that experience of thinking,

Of having thoughts.

And notice how actually that is quite a different experience.

It feels different to be thinking with awareness rather than how we usually think when our awareness is directed elsewhere.

So let's spend a few moments adding this awareness to our thoughts,

Thinking with a nice light and open awareness.

Remembering not to concentrate,

Not to focus on the thoughts,

Just to hold them lightly and gently in the centre of your awareness and allowing everything else that is happening in this moment just to continue as it is,

Just lightly in the background.

So awareness of thoughts.

Ф So being aware of your thoughts,

Also maintaining that.

Presence,

Being in the present moment by acknowledging the other things that are happening now.

Breath,

Sensations in the body,

Feelings,

Emotions,

Sounds,

All the other things occurring in this moment.

Still within your awareness,

Just slightly in the background as we pay a little more attention,

Have a little more interest in what it feels like to be aware of your thoughts as you think.

So the fifth step overall and the second step for the thoughts is to not try and change your thoughts in any way.

This can sometimes be a bit trickier than not changing the breath,

Especially if you are having thoughts that you would rather not have.

So maybe if you feel like you're having too many thoughts,

Or the thoughts are going too quickly,

Or maybe they're not very positive thoughts,

The temptation can be to make some effort to do something about that,

To try and slow your thoughts or change your thoughts.

So the invitation for this meditation is to make absolutely no effort whatsoever to change the content of a single thought.

To give your thoughts complete freedom to think whatever they want.

So although I'm bringing more awareness to my thoughts,

To that process of thinking,

I'm actually completely disinterested in the content of my thoughts.

It's completely unimportant and irrelevant for this meditation what the thoughts actually are.

So I'll spend a few moments really noticing what it feels like to give your thoughts this complete freedom.

Thank you.

Keeping your awareness nice and open and light,

No sense of concentration or focus.

Simply allowing the thoughts to flow freely through your open awareness,

Still aware of breath and sounds and other sensations.

Just being interested in the process of thoughts and completely disinterested in the content.

Thank you.

And the sixth step,

The third step for the thoughts.

Just as we did with the breath,

What are we saying if we could feel the body being breathed by the breath?

See if you can similarly notice with your thoughts that you don't have to make any effort to think.

You don't have to remember to think.

You don't have to choose your thoughts.

You can experience that your thoughts occur to you.

They happen to you.

They appear within your awareness,

Within your mind,

Without you having to make any effort at all to do the thinking.

So spend a few moments experiencing not just setting your thoughts free in the sense of not caring what the content of your thoughts are,

But also really enjoying the fact that your thoughts are entirely effortless.

So we're giving our thoughts all the space they need by having a nice open awareness.

We're giving our thoughts complete freedom because we're not going to try and change our thoughts in any way.

And we're noticing that it takes no effort whatsoever for our thoughts to arise.

Nice little trick you can play with the mind to help with this final step with the thoughts,

Of the thoughts arriving on their own into your mind,

Is to see if you can catch the arrival of each new thought when it does appear within your awareness.

So really being alert and open and welcoming and seeing if you can catch the arrival of each new thought.

So that's the final step.

The step of relaxation.

Firstly,

Let's allow the body from the shoulders all the way down to the tips of your fingers and toes to completely relax.

Feel that relaxation response throughout the body and the neck and shoulders all the way down to the fingers and the toes.

Notice how easily now the breath can flow freely through the body as we relax the body.

And then finally moving your attention to the face and the head and starting with all the muscles across the face,

Around the jaw and mouth,

Around the eyes and forehead.

Allow all these muscles across the face to completely relax.

Enjoy that feeling of the relaxation response in the face.

And the same for the top back and sides of the head,

Scalp and the skull.

Allow all these parts of your head to completely relax.

Feel that relaxation response.

And then turning to the brain in exactly the same way as you have with every other part of your body.

Simply allow your brain to completely relax.

Feel that relaxation response in the brain as you allow it to totally relax.

So being aware of the whole head,

Just holding this awareness of the whole head,

The face and the brain.

Holding the brain gently in the centre of your open awareness and allow the brain and the whole of the head to completely relax.

Notice how easily your thoughts can flow through your awareness,

The more you relax the brain and the head.

So you can relax.

So we can begin to bring the meditation to a close now by bringing all these seven steps together into one experience.

An experience of free flowing thoughts and free flowing breath,

Flowing freely through your relaxed body and your relaxed brain.

Holding everything in your open awareness,

The relaxed body,

The relaxed brain,

The flow of breath and the flow of thoughts.

We can now create the experience of free flowing through all of your three senses into completesuction,

And just imagine how easily it would be now to fall into a deep refreshing sleep with such a relaxing body.

And free flowing breath and thoughts.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

And just imagine how easy it would be to fall asleep with such a relaxing body.

Reviews

Hi Stephen. Must be good! Didn't hear much of the meditation. Works for me. Thank you. 💤💤🙏🙏