And now it's time to relax.
Thank you for joining me.
My name is Dr.
Connor Logan.
I'm a doctor of acupuncture and oriental medicine.
And I'm here to help you relax.
This meditation can be used on the daily,
Should you need a moment to scan through your body,
Check in with yourself,
Or drift off to sleep fully relaxed.
So let's begin.
First,
Ensure that you're in a comfortable position,
Whether this be seated,
Standing,
Lying down,
Or perhaps you're choosing to do an activity like walking.
Let's start with three smooth and easy breaths.
In through the nose and out through the mouth.
In through the nose and out through the mouth.
And one more time,
In through the nose and out through the mouth.
From this point forward,
Feel free to breathe however your body wants to breathe.
And gently close your eyes.
Of course,
If you're using this meditation to try to sleep,
It makes sense to close your eyes.
But if not,
There's still a very real reason.
This is because our sense of vision is quite profound.
We take in a lot of information and form our perspective on what's going around us through that lens.
When we block out vision,
Slowly but surely,
We become more attuned to how we're doing internally.
We can check in with ourselves.
How does our body feel?
And you'll see here,
As we scan through the body,
Limiting vision will allow us to do that more completely and more effectively.
Begin by focusing on your feet,
Allowing them to feel whatever you feel.
Now,
As you breathe in the word,
Relax.
It could be a very slight feeling,
Maybe a numbness or tingling or a feeling of change of temperature,
Or perhaps noticing your shoes or your sheets or the air and how it's touching the skin.
Breathe in the word,
Relax,
And really focus on all the parts of your foot,
The sole,
The heel,
The spaces between each of your toes,
The spaces between each of the bones in your foot,
In your midfoot,
Your instep,
Where your midfoot meets your ankle,
Where your Achilles tendon starts to move up and towards your calf.
Breathe in the word,
Relax,
And allow this wave of relaxation to move up into your shins,
Your calves,
Toward your knees.
At your knees,
Focus deeply on viewing in your mind's eye all there is to see inside and around your knees.
Allow your kneecaps to relax away from your upper legs.
Let the backs of your knees become softer.
Allow each moment of time that passes to relax you more.
Allow each sound that you hear to relax you more,
And allow everything you feel to relax you more.
Let this building relaxation move up into your upper legs.
Again,
In your mind's eye,
Move around your thighs,
Your quadriceps,
Your hamstrings,
The outside IT band,
And in turn,
Check in with each area.
Any areas that feel like they're holding tension,
Give them the permission to relax.
Move this relaxation up into your hips,
Your tailbone,
Your buttock,
Your shins,
Where your sacrum meets your lower back,
The area of your abdomen below your navel,
And the tops of your hips.
Simply allow everything in this area to soften.
Now let's move this relaxation up into our abdomen,
Our rib cage,
Our solar plexus,
Our chest,
Scapula,
And up to the collarbones.
It's not uncommon when focusing on relaxing the chest and the upper torso to feel the need to breathe in a little deeper,
A little more fully.
Allow this need to be serviced and breathe.
Breathe in the word relax.
Allow this relaxation to sit at the tops of our arms and in our shoulders.
And as you breathe in,
Let your shoulders fill with air and light.
And as you breathe out,
Push this free relaxation down towards your elbows.
And as you breathe in,
Let your shoulders fill with air and light.
Through your biceps and triceps.
And when you breathe in again,
Breathe into the area that you felt you were able to push before.
So you start at the tops with your shoulders.
You breathe in and push down as you exhale towards your elbows.
And now breathe in to those elbows.
And breathe out,
Pushing down towards your wrists.
And maybe in your forearms or wrists,
You breathe in again and push out and breathe out through your palms.
And then breathe into your palms and breathe out through your fingertips.
And now we'll combine it by breathing into the tops of our arms and breathing out through our fingertips.
Again,
Breathe in to your shoulders and out your fingers.
Now,
Let's take a moment to breathe into an area that we all feel a great deal of tension,
Typically our neck.
Breathe in,
Allowing your throat to open and relax a little bit.
You'll feel you have this right when you start to notice a little slipstream of cool intake air,
Coolly falling down through our throat.
Take a moment to breathe in and out here.
Allow this wave of relaxation to move up to where the back of our neck meets the back of our head.
Where the muscle meets the skull.
Focus on your hair and scalp.
Breathing in and out through your scalp.
As you allow it to move up toward the top of your head,
Make circles around your ears.
Soften your ears away from your eyes,
Your cheeks away from your forehead.
Allow your eyelids to soften even more and your eyes to sink.
Let the bridge of your nose be wide and let your upper lip hang away from your nose.
And simply allow your jaw to drop.
Allow each noise you hear to relax you even more.
Allow each feeling to relax you even more.
And allow each moment of time to relax you even more.
Now,
With each breath,
Revisit each area.
When you feel you are complete,
You're welcome to end the exercise.
And if you are performing this meditation for sleep,
You can just let this go and drift off to sleep.
Give yourself gratitude for checking in with yourself.
And thank you for listening.
