This meditation is designed to prepare the body and mind for deep restorative sleep.
Lie down and get very comfortable.
Softly close your eyes.
Long smooth breath in the nose and let it go.
Feeling yourself sink back into your soft welcoming bed.
Relax the muscles behind your eyes.
Any muscular tension in the body to release.
Just explore how the body breathes for you.
Notice the pace of your breath,
The rhythm,
The quality.
Begin to smooth out the breath.
Mentally count how long it takes you to breathe in and to breathe out.
Noticing if one is longer than the other or if they're equal in duration.
Now see if you can begin to make the exhale count longer than the inhale count.
So if you inhale to the count of two,
Gently exhale to the count of three or four.
If you inhale to the count of four,
Gently exhale to the count of five or six or even seven.
Noticing all the muscles behind the eyes,
Relaxing the jaw,
Unhinging,
And any muscular tension releasing as you exhale.
As you continue to lengthen your exhales,
Each time that you do,
Feel yourself sink back into your bed,
More heavily and more relaxed with each out breath.
Just feel your way through this practice,
Dropping back into those exhales more heavily,
More relaxed,
Complete breath by breath.
Relaxing more and more,
Letting go a little bit more every time you breathe out,
Resting that your body will take the next inhale when it feels ready.
Letting yourself sink back into those longer,
Sweeter exhales as you soften and settle down completely.
Allow yourself just to drift into a deep restorative sleep from here.
Allow yourself to drift into a deep restorative healing sleep.
