Sleep Beautifully from Tonight:
A Bedtime Nervous System Reset

hello, and welcome to your bedtime nervous system Reset. You can do this meditation snuggled up in bed, or [00:01:00] perhaps sat on the edge of your bed or sat on your sofa.

Helping to prepare you for sleep.

And I want you to know that there is no way to do this wrong. Allow yourself to relax into this bedtime nervous system reset. Don't worry if you miss part of what I'm saying. And don't worry if you are doing something different,

I'm sure that you are doing exactly what your nervous system needs.

We'll start with some very gentle, mindful movement. and then we'll take our attention to the breath.

We'll [00:02:00] relax into a calming mantra, and then I'll guide you through a relaxing body scan.

And remember, you can listen to this as many times as you need to prepare for sleep.

So just starting by making sure that you are comfortable wherever you are,

allowing your gaze to soften or your eyes to close.

And we'll start with some very gentle, mindful ankle circles. So just gently rotating your feet one way.

[00:03:00] Allowing this to be calming and slow, almost like a massage for your feet and your lower legs,

and then changing direction with those ankle circles and perhaps even starting to slow the movement down.

And then letting that go. And if you are laid in bed and it feels comfortable to do so, you could draw your knees into your chest. If you are seated, you could very gently draw your chin down towards your chest, rounding the spine gently that way,[00:04:00]

and then coming back to your comfortable position and coming into a calming twist, simply taking your knees, your legs one way. In your arms the other way, and it might be a really slight twist, and that's great. If there's any discomfort, then lessening the twist or or just missing it out

and then coming back to center. And mindfully moving into your twist to your second direction,

allowing the twist to feel like a massage for your hips, your spine, your shoulders.[00:05:00]

I am coming back to center

and we'll take a couple of shoulder rolls. So this is really beneficial whether you are seated or whether you are lying down, and it can be as simple as rolling the shoulders forwards and up towards the ears on your inhale, and then sending the shoulders backwards and down on the exhale.

And you guessed it. This is like a little mini massage for your shoulders. We are allowing and encouraging any muscular tension that's been built up through the day to release and these soft, relaxed muscles are going to be telling our nervous [00:06:00] system that we are safe and that we are ready for deep rest and sleep.

And allowing your shoulders to come to stillness. Taking some gentle, mindful circles with the hands now, lovely calming movement for the wrists, and these circles can be very slow and very small. And as always, if there's any discomfort, then just miss it out.

And when you are ready, allowing your hands to come to stillness. If there's any other parts of your body that need a little bit of a stretch or a massage, go ahead.

And do that [00:07:00] now.

And then placing one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly. And if it's not comfortable to leave the hands there, place their hands somewhere where they are comfortable and place your mind's eye on the chest and on the belly.

And then start to breathe past the hand that's on the chest, breathing down into the belly and exhaling, allowing the belly to soften and the air leaving the body ideally through the nose.

Allowing your breath to direct itself [00:08:00] down into this belly hand, and allowing the breath to become subtle and silent as the body and mind start to relax.

And you might notice that your breath naturally becomes longer as you start to relax, and this is wonderful. Working with this, so allowing, and encouraging your breath to move down into the belly to be subtle and silent and longer than it was before.[00:09:00]

Keeping all of that going and now starting to make your exhale breath. A little longer than your inhale,

allowing the breath to be subtle and silent in through the nose, down into the belly, and the exhale leaving the body ideally through the nose. And this exhale is slightly longer than your inhale.[00:10:00]

And now we'll add a mantra onto this natural breath to keep your mind just gently focused on one thing, on the mantra.

Rather than focused on lots of other different things that might contribute to keeping you more alert

as you inhale saying to yourself, I am safe.

And as you exhale saying to yourself, I am resting

on the inhale saying to yourself, I am safe

on your exhale, saying to yourself, I am [00:11:00] resting.

And then letting go of the mantra. Allowing your body to breathe naturally, subtly for you, and taking your attention all the way down to your toes

is seeing if you can relax all of your toes. Relaxing the toes on your right foot

[00:12:00] and seeing if you can relax the hole of the sole of your right foot.

Relaxing the top of your right foot, the whole right foot.

Your right inner ankle and outer ankle.

Seeing if you can soften the muscles of your right calf and soften the right shin bone,

relaxing your right kneecap and knee.

And scanning up through your right thigh, relaxing the muscles across the front [00:13:00] of the thigh, the inner thigh, the back of the thigh, the outer thigh. Completely relaxing all of the muscles of your right thigh and seeing if you can let your thigh bone be heavier, resting in your hip socket, relaxing the hole of the right side of the pelvis.

And then taking your awareness down to the toes on your left foot

and seeing if you can soften the sole of your left foot.

Soften the top of your left [00:14:00] foot. Relax your whole left foot,

left inner ankle and outer ankle, and all of those calf muscles on your left side, perhaps even softening your left shin bone.

Relax your left kneecap and knee

and softening the muscles across the front of your left thigh and thigh. The back of the thigh, the outer left the thigh bone. Be heavy into your hip socket. And relax the whole of the left side of the pelvis.[00:15:00]

Relax all of your toes, both feet, both lower legs, knees, thighs, and your whole pelvis.

Relax your belly, the sides of your waist and your lower back.

Relax your upper back, the sides of your rib cage and your chest.

And relax the space between your collarbone,

soften your right collarbone, right shoulder, [00:16:00] upper arm, elbow, lower arm, wrist. The palm of the right hand, right thumb, index finger, middle finger, ring finger, little finger. The whole right hand, the whole right arm.

Right shoulder. Right shoulder blade. The space between the shoulder blades, left shoulder blade. Left shoulder, [00:17:00] upper upper arm, elbow. Lower arm left wrist. The palm of the left hand, left thumb. Index finger, middle finger, ring finger, little finger, the whole left hand. The whole left arm, left shoulder, left collarbone.

The space between the collarbone, the front of the neck, the hinge of your jaw,

your [00:18:00] cheeks. All the little muscles around your eyes. Eyelids, eyeballs, eyebrows, the whole forehead, the skin of your scalp, the bones of your skull, your whole head. Relax, your whole body. Relax your whole body. Relax your whole body. [00:19:00] [00:20:00]