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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners

10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation

What is Meditation?

Mindful LivingSleep
CommunityFor Work

Better Sleep to Build Resilience

Kelly Boys

00:00

00:00

Meditation

4.4

Duration

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Better Sleep to Build Resilience

This practice guides you into a deep, restful sleep where your body can repair and rebuild, gaining resilience.

Welcome.

Let's start by finding

a comfortable posture.

In this meditation, if you can,

please find a lying down position that

supports you to go into a deep, restful

sleep, even if it's just a power nap.

The theme of this meditation is to

build resilience through better sleep,

where your body can repair and rebuild.

So relax, kick back and

let's start this meditation.

Wherever you are in this

moment, can you find yourself

at least 10% more comfortable?

So this may be bringing your shoulder

blades down your back or placing

a pillow underneath your knees.

But find yourself in a position that

supports you to go into a restful sleep.

Begin by opening all of your senses.

So if your eyes are closed, noticing

any shadow or light across the eyelids.

Opening ears to sound.

The sound of my voice, any sound in

the room or outside the room you're in.

Taste, smell, touch, feeling the

sensation of air on your skin.

All of your senses are open.

And begin by noticing the flow

of the breath in and out as you

sense your whole body at once.

Noticing what your mind is doing.

If your thoughts are racing or calm.

Not judging, simply being

with what you come upon.

So what's present in your mind,

your thoughts, acknowledging.

Noticing.

Are there any emotions present,

any feeling tones in your body?

We're just getting a sense

of the inner landscape before

descending into a restful sleep.

So your senses are open.

Welcoming what's in your experience,

your mind, emotion, your body.

Begin to notice your breath, the

gentle flow in and out without

changing or directing your breath.

Can you catch the wave of your

breath as it flows in and out?

Following it.

Feeling the surface that supports you.

Perhaps a bed or couch or the floor.

Can you let go?

Letting your weight released into

the surface that supports you.

The mind may begin to calm.

Senses open, breath coming and going.

We'll do a HeartSpace breathing practice.

So bring attention to

your heart, breathe in.

And then breathe out into your whole body.

The flow of your breath,

inhaling to the heart.

Exhaling whole body.

Can you feel as it were, the

body is breathing itself, but

you're allowing attention on

the inhale to come to the heart?

And then on the exhale energy

disperses into the entire body.

Palms of hands, souls

of feet, crown of head.

Inhaling, gathering

attention to the heart.

Exhaling, whole body.

You can allow your attention to flow

with the energy of the breath in and

out in this way for a few more cycles.

Inhaling to the heart.

And exhaling out into the whole body,

and then this space around the body.

Breath coming and going in this

way with heartspace breathing.

With the exhalation, you may feel out

further and further away from your body

into the whole room, beyond the room.

And always with the inhale, gathering

attention back to the heart.

Exhaling out.

Find a gentle rhythm

that supports you here.

And can you let go of controlling the

breath, but allow the breath to still

gather at the heart with the inhale

and disperse out into the body into the

space around the body with the exhale?

HeartSpace breathing practice.

Feeling again your body, the

surface that supports you.

Noticing any thoughts may

recede into the background.

The mind is busy.

Simply noticing, and then

bringing attention back to

the body, back to the breath.

Same with any emotions or feelings,

allowing them, welcoming them to be here.

And then letting your attention come

back to the body, back to the breath.

Now let go of any

controlling of the breath.

Feeling body being breathed, resting here.

Picturing your cells, your muscles,

bones, organs, all resting and repairing.

Inviting in a quality of rejuvenation

to all of these subtle systems in

your body that are working in the

background, your brain and nervous system.

Picturing your whole body

and being repairing, resting.

So if you can, resting back even further

into this quality of your own presence.

What do you feel as you rest here?

Maybe there's an invitation

to let go into sleep.

Or to be right in between

waking and sleeping.

Allowing yourself to rest here.

Perhaps a quality of floating

or buoyancy is present.

Nowhere to go.

Nothing to do.

No one to be right now.

Simply enjoying rest.

Feel free from here to continue

into deeper states of sleep or

to reorient back to the room.

Thank you for your practice.

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