41. Sleep beautifully from tonight - a bedtime nervous system reset

If your mind tends to stay busy at night, or your body feels wired when it should be winding down, this gentle bedtime practice will help guide you into sleep.

In this episode, Holly guides you through a simple sequence of slow breathing, body awareness and nervous system regulation techniques designed to help your body shift into its natural rest and digest mode.

When the nervous system settles, sleep becomes much easier.

This practice is designed to be listened to as you settle into bed, allowing the breath and gentle pacing of the guidance to naturally lead you toward deep, restorative rest.

You don’t need to do anything perfectly. Simply get comfortable, listen, and allow the body to unwind.

You’ll be guided through:

💤 Gentle body awareness to release tension

💤 Slow breathing to calm the nervous system

💤 Letting go of the day’s mental load

💤 A gradual transition into deep sleep

You might find that practising regularly helps train the body to switch off more easily at night.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to all of yoga. This podcast explores yoga all of yoga, including the roots and history of yoga. How simple concepts yoga philosophy can help us live a less stressful life. How to approach the physical aspect of yoga in a safe and beneficial way. If you're new to yoga and wondering what it's all about, or you're an experienced yogi looking to learn more about all of yoga, this podcast is for you. Hello and welcome to your bedtime nervous system reset. You can do this meditation snuggled up in bed, or 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're doing something different. I'm sure that you're 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 breaths. We'll 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. Just gently rotating your feet one way, 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're laid in bed and it feels comfortable to do so, you could draw your knees into your chest. If you're seated, you could very gently draw your chin down towards your chest, rounding the spine gently that way. And then coming back to your comfortable position and coming into a calming twist. Simply taking your knees, your legs one way, and 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 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, and 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're 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 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're 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 now. And then place in one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly. And if it's not comfortable to leave the hands there, place the 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 down into this belly hand, and allowing the breath to become subtle and silent as the body and mind start to relax. You might notice that your breath naturally becomes longer as you start to relax. 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. 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. The exhale leaving the body ideally through the nose. And this exhale is slightly longer than your inhale. 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. On the inhale, saying to yourself, I am safe. On your exhale, saying to yourself, I am resting. Allowing your body to breathe naturally, subtly for you, and taking your attention all the way down to your toes. Seeing if you can relax all of your toes, relaxing the toes on your right foot. Seeing if you can relax the whole 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, and 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 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 whole 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 foot. Relax your whole left foot, left inner ankle and outer ankle. 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, inner thigh, the back of the thigh, the outer left thigh bone be heavy into your hip socket and relax the whole of the left side of the pelvis. 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 ribcage and your chest. Relax the space between your collarbones, soften your right collarbone, right shoulder, 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, 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 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.