John Legend's Sleepcast

This is how it feels when you were about to be let in on a secret. When you step gladly past the sign marked, closed to the public, into an empty foyer from a street damp with rain. The foyer belongs to Harmony Hall, an historic music venue whose walls have held every variety of music in its 150 years. And tonight you're in for a different kind of performance. Just a handful of people are given the opportunity to visit Harmony Hall after hours. And those are some of its best hours, in the quiet when it's a space for reflection, its atmosphere resonating with all that musical history, the grand piano waiting on the stage, like a promise. A hushed anticipation builds as you cross the mosaic floor, the very same floor that has carried the feet of excited fans down through the decades. Long time lovers here for the symphony. Teenagers rushing to see their latest idol. And opera fans, hoping to catch the swan song of an aging icon. You name the genre, they've been here for it. They too made their way among these marble columns and walls adorned with murals towards the sweeping staircase, it's red carpet flowing upwards like a personal honor. There will be no lobby lights flashing to tell you the show is about to start tonight. The time is yours to explore as you like. But before we begin, let's take a brief moment for a calming, wind-down exercise. Tonight's wind-down is an exercise we call, noting. It helps to soothe the mind and once you've learned it, you can even use it if you wake up during the night. We're going to be counting our breaths and then just gently noting thoughts and feelings as they arise. We're not trying to change them. We're simply labeling thinking as thinking, feeling as feeling. It may sound incredibly simple, but it can help to create distance between ourselves and the thought, between ourselves and the feeling so we don't get so involved in it. That, in turn, creates a more restful state of mind. In other words, the perfect conditions for gentle, restful sleep. So to begin, just take a moment or two to get comfortable. Make sure you're nice and cool. Just starting with some big, deep breaths, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. And with the next out breath, allow the breath to return to its natural rhythm, in and out through the nose, and feeling the weight of the body pressing you down into your bed. And in your own time, starting to count the breaths as they pass. One with the rise, two with the fall, just up to account of 10. When you get to 10, you can stop and start again at one. And remember, any time you get distracted, the moment you realize you're distracted by thoughts, simply note it thinking and return to the breath. Or if we're feeling...