Easy, Simple Sleep Meditation for the Whole Body

simple sleep meditation

In these times of change, stress, fear, and anxiety for many, I have been contemplating the nature of difficult emotions more than usual. I have been reflecting on the practical tools and habits we can adopt to help us manage and process our emotions when they challenge us. Today, I want to share a meditation for sleep that has helped me address nights of stress and insomnia for many years now.

Are you having trouble sleeping? You might enjoy this simple sleep meditation.

In my post on Self-Care Practices and Habits for Spring, I came clean about my newfound love of and passion for meditation. It’s become a real guidepost for me, especially in times of turmoil.

Most nights my bedtime routine includes time for a few short, beautifully guided meditations. It’s not uncommon for me to fall asleep to one, especially if there is background music to soothe me. On other nights, I’m wrestling with my whirling thoughts.

On those nights, this meditation for sleep that I’m calling my “Whole Body Attitude of Gratitude” is a favourite. Suddenly sleep is much less difficult! It also doubles as a self-care practice because it intuitively combines meditation AND gratitude.

Scientists studying gratitude have found that it offers numerous health benefits, including:

  • stronger relationships
  • better physical and psychological health
  • greater empathy
  • better sleep
  • higher self-esteem, and
  • greater mental resilience, to name a few.

How does this simple sleep meditation work?

I call this simple sleep meditation, my “Whole Body Attitude of Gratitude”. And there is really no wrong way to go about this. Variations of it probably exist, but I like to think I invented it because I see it as a love letter to my body.

I typically like to start this meditation for sleep at my feet and work my way up.

However, you could just as easily start at your head and work your way down. Either way, it has been very rare for me to actually make it from head to toe before falling asleep!

There is something about focusing the mind, distracting us from our “Monkey Mind” problems that helps. If you combine that with sincere gratitude and appreciation for everything your physical, emotional and spiritual body successfully accomplished (or simply survived) that day, this practice can be deeply restorative.

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Here’s how this sleep meditation works:

Starting from my feet, I focus my attention on a specific body part, bone or organ and sincerely thank it for whatever it has enabled me to do that day. It’s that humble, and it can be as simple or as scientific as you like.

Your meditation for sleep could look something like this:  

  • Dear feet, thank you for giving me a solid foundation to stand on today. I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off and you made it possible for me to go where I needed to go and get where I was going.
  • Thank you to my long legs for enabling me to reach the cereal on the top shelf of the pantry. You know it’s my son’s favourite and it helped us avoid an epic meltdown this morning!
  • Thank you to my pelvic girdle for literally helping keep my physical body connected. I am grateful to you for providing the structure and stability to keep this body moving through this sometimes wild and sometimes exhausting life.
  • Dear small intestine, thank you for helping me assimilate my food today. Thank you for helping me absorb nutrients so I have maximum energy to tackle the day’s challenges, reduce stress, and bring a sense of peace and patience to my role as a caregiver to one of the most important people in my life.   —> That’s the nerdy nutritionist in me in case you missed it!

And so on. You get the idea.

Photo by Alexandra Gorn on Unsplash

What can I do if I get to the end of this sleep meditation and I’m still awake?

If you’re not asleep by the time you get to the top (or bottom) of your body, you can repeat the same body parts. Or challenge yourself to identify and send gratitude to different ones.

This is a real-life practice, whether you’re care-giving for others or just yourself (and that’s just as important).

I always give myself permission to say anything I feel moved to.

It’s not always pretty, but it feels healthy and cathartic! In the end, my gratitude notes are always original, always sincere, and often a little bit funny.

Please experiment with this simple sleep meditation (Whole Body Attitude of Gratitude).

It is infinitely flexible and always unique, depending on your personality, your knowledge of the human body, and your own connection to the habit and practice of gratitude.

If you try it, let me know how you like it, or let me know what your favourite body part is and why.

I’d love to know!

Life is a plate… Eat up,

Ashleigh

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