Falling Back to Sleep
Nothing feels more frustrating than waking up in the middle of the night and having difficulty nodding off again, especially when you start overthinking it. Step out of the thinking mind with an exercise that’s designed to lull you into a place of rest, allowing you to drift off back to sleep.
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So just lying back down, making yourself comfortable in your bed. Taking a deep breath, breathing in through the nose and then out through the mouth. As you breathe out, closing the eyes and just taking a moment to pause, no matter how much you wanna go back to sleep, just letting go. That idea, letting go of any thinking, just pausing to feel the weight of the body pressing down into the bed. Feeling that contact, the feet, the ankles, the legs. The back, the arms, the hands, the head. Allowing the bed to support the full weight of the body. And we're just gonna begin slowly to count backwards, starting at 1000, just steadily counting without any expectation, without any effort, just creating the conditions for the mind to rest, for the body to rest. And if the body wants to, to drift back off to sleep. If you find it helps, you can even imagine the numbers as you gently move backwards from one number to the next. It's really important to do this without any gender, simply confident knowing we're resting the mind, resting the body. Knowing that we might count all the way back to zero, that's okay, just staying with that steady rhythm. As always, allowing thoughts to come and go. If you find yourself caught up in thoughts about thinking, about sleeping, just realizing that letting it go, and just coming back to accounting again. As you continue, just steadily count backwards. So counting with a very gentle touch, no effort required. So the mind is naturally moving in that direction, it's just noting, acknowledging the numbers as I pass. And allowing body to rest, allowing the mind to be at ease just continuing in that way now....
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A former Buddhist monk, Andy has guided people in meditation and mindfulness for 20 years. In his mission to make these practices accessible to all, he co-created the Headspace app in 2010.
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Eve is a mindfulness teacher, overseeing Headspace’s meditation curriculum. She is passionate about sharing meditation to help others feel less stressed and experience more compassion in their lives.
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As a meditation teacher, Dora encourages others to live, breathe, and be with the fullness of their experiences. She loves meditation’s power to create community and bring clarity to people’s minds.
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Kessonga has been an acupuncturists, therapist, and meditation teacher, working to bring mindfulness to the diverse populations of the world.
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Rosie Acosta has studied yoga and mindfulness for more than 20 years and taught for over a decade. Rosie’s mission is to help others overcome adversity and experience radical love.
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