Body Sensing Meditation for Help with Sleep

Anxiety around bedtime is a struggle for many people of all ages. Whether the challenge is to fall asleep or stay asleep, worry doesn’t make getting enough zees any easier. Here is a strategy for calming that uses a body scanning strategy combined with breath awareness.

Parents might share this practice out loud to help a child go to sleep. The child also might learn to use all or parts of the technique on their own. Once you understand the basic strategy you can adapt the wording to meet your own needs or the needs of the person you are sharing this with. Some might even fall asleep before you get through the whole practice!

If you or another person experiencing this practice do not have all of their body parts you can ask whether it feels good to imagine those body parts while doing the body scan or whether it feels better to include only body parts that are present. For a person who is deaf or hard of hearing or for people who respond well to sensory touch, there is the option to gently touch parts of the body while moving through the practice. Once learned, the practice can be silent, internal, and personalized. Be creative about how to make it workable and useful for any person who might benefit.

To help with sleep, body sensing starts with the feet…

Please make yourself comfortable in bed or another space where you can relax and listen to the 10-minute meditation provided in this video.

When you are finished listening, if you are not yet ready for sleep, you may wish to begin again with the body sensing, always starting with your feet and traveling awareness up through the body, noticing the breath throughout your own journey into rest.

The Meditation Script

If you prefer to read this script aloud to someone else or to yourself, here are the words from the video:

Notice that you have two feet. On your feet there are toes, big toes, second toes, middle toes, fourth toes, and baby toes. Notice your feet and toes. Notice what your feet and toes are touching. Is it soft or hard? Cool or warm? Are your toes and feet relaxed? Notice that you have ankles. Your legs have a lower part. You have two knees. Your legs have an upper part. You have hips. Notice what your hips, legs and feet are resting on. Is there anything you could change to be even just a little bit more comfortable?

Notice your tummy. Notice that as you breathe in your tummy goes up. As you breathe out your tummy goes down. Notice what it feels like to breathe in and out of your tummy. As you breathe in, you are noticing that your tummy is filling up. As you breathe out, you are noticing that your tummy is getting empty. What does breathing feel like? Just notice.

Notice that behind your tummy is your back. You have a lower back, a middle back, and an upper back. Inside your back there are ribs, and your ribs have a back part, two sides, and a front part. Your front ribs meet at your chest.

Notice that when you breathe in, your tummy fills up and so does your chest. Your ribs get a little wider. When you breathe out your chest goes down and so does your tummy. Your ribs settle in. See if you can notice what it feels like when your tummy and chest fill up with breath and when they empty of breath. Notice how long it takes for a breath to come all the way in and to go all the way back out again. Your body knows how to breathe all by itself and does this all day long. Notice how it feels to pay attention to your body breathing.

Notice that your chest is in between your shoulders. Your shoulders are connected to your arms.  Your arms have an upper part. You have elbows. Your arms have a lower part, and you have two wrists. Notice your hands. You have fingers. Each hand has a thumb, first finger, second finger, third finger and a baby finger. Your hands have a back part and a palm. Notice what your shoulders, arms and hands are resting on. Is it soft or hard? Cool or warm? Are your arms, hands, and fingers relaxed? Is there anything you could change to be even just a tiny bit more comfortable?

Notice that your heart is beating inside your chest. You are breathing, and your heart is beating. Your body is taking care of its basic needs to be healthy and alive. Notice that right now you are safe. Notice the room you are in and whether there is lightness or darkness or some of both. Notice any sounds that are near or far. Notice that your body is breathing. Your chest and belly fill up each time you breathe in and empty each time you breathe out. Make any little changes that you need to be slightly more comfortable.

Notice that you have a neck and a head. Notice what the back of your head is resting on. Your head has a top part and two sides. You have eyebrows and two eyes. Your eyes can close so that your top eyelashes and your bottom eyelashes touch each other. Imagine that there is a color behind your closed eyes that is a soft dark blue. Notice how you feel when you peer into this deep blue space behind your eyes. Notice if there are any edges to the dark blue or if it seems to stretch forever, like the night sky.

Notice that you have a mouth. Inside your mouth there is a tongue, and you have teeth. Your mouth has a right side and a left side. Your mouth is resting.

Notice that you have a nose with two nostrils. Air comes into your nostrils and goes out through your nostrils. Notice that air traveling into your nostrils moves down into your chest and tummy. After the air empties from your tummy and chest it leaves through your nostrils. Notice the long journey that your breath takes through the body, from the nostrils to the chest and belly. Out from the belly, the chest, and the nostrils. What does it feel like to watch your body breathing?

Notice the shape of your whole body and what your body is resting on. You have feet and legs. You have a tummy and a back. Your arms and hands are resting. Your whole body is comfortable and resting. You are breathing with your nose, your chest and your belly. Your eyes are closed, and there’s a dark blue color behind your eyelids. We’re breathing in and breathing out through our noses. We are safe and resting. We are noticing what it feels like to rest.

Download the meditation script

Stay-Home Help: Get Organized, Feel Big Feelings, Breathe

A Brief Overview

Full Article

Big feelings are happening. We feel them, and we care for others who are having them. Times of uncertainly cause stress that makes big feelings feel bigger. Emotions might seem to run away with all the energy we had left. It can feel hard to breathe, and it’s easy to lose a sense of control over what happens within the span of a day.

Taking time to pause and organize the days ahead can help, especially if mindfulness and breath practices are built into the schedule.

Here’s a to-do list for every day

  1. Have a plan
  2. Be real with big feelings
  3. Breathe

The rest of this article provides ideas about these three strategies. Please note that resources included are not affiliated with PAVE, and PAVE does not recommend or endorse these programs or services.

Organize the day to create predictability

Getting organized with a clear routine is helpful because predictability calms the nervous system, suggests the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). CASEL offered a webinar in early April to help parents and educators explore Social Emotional Learning (SEL) during the stay-home order related to COVID-19.

A key presenter was Jennifer Miller, founder of Confident Parents, Confident Kids, which  provides an article for parents: Setting up for Homework Success. Miller offers a video describing how to establish a morning routine to give each day a predictable jump-start. She advises families to schedule intentional moments for loving connection throughout each day. For example, one of her family’s rituals is a hallway hug first thing out of bed.

To support children in feeling safe, confident and in control, Miller recommends that adults plan-ahead to speak out loud when they notice children taking care of business: “I notice you are getting dressed…brushing teeth…feeding the dog… all by yourself.”

Predictability, contribution and accomplishment are all feelings that calm the brain and can be part of making and maintaining a family schedule. Miller advises that all members of the family work together to design the plan.

The family’s daily schedule can include a wake-up routine, movement, nature time, academics, rest time, meals and shared cooking/cleaning, screen time, art time, chores, reading, bath time, bedtime…. The schedule can have words and/or pictures and should be posted where everyone can refer to it.

Generally, children respond well to having some built-in choices and a variety of brain breaks. Sample family schedules are easy to search for online; families might prefer to design their own format, just for them.

Here are some places to look for ideas:

  • Mother.ly shares a mom’s family schedule that “went viral” during the pandemic.
  • Get-Organized-Mom.com offers printable forms and samples for how to use them.
  • Adding Homeschool to an online search brings up a wide selection of options, some for free and some with a small cost.

Feel big feelings, and let others feel theirs too

Generally, humans are emotional. We feel, and we respond to what we feel. Squished emotions usually don’t go away but loom larger. Here are a few strategies for being with big feelings:

Talk openly: Big feelings can be more manageable when they are spoken and shared. Ask another person, What are you feeling right now? Listen without judgment or analysis. Here’s one way to respond: Wow, that’s a lot to feel. Tell me more. A Sesame Street program called  Here for Each Other offers a 90-second video posted to YouTube to help adults talk to children about Big Feelings. To help families discuss feelings specifically related to COVID-19, PBS.org provides toolkits in English and Spanish.

Name it to tame it: Dan Siegel, a neuroscientist, recommends calling out emotions in order to manage them. Here’s a short video: Name it to tame it. To make brain science practical, Siegel talks about an upstairs brain and a downstairs brain. When the downstairs brain (emotion) controls the show, the upstairs brain (learning/problem-solving) clicks offline. Here are some ideas for what to do if someone is overwhelmed by emotion:

  • Create a safe physical space: Offer a drink of water, a blanket, a stuffed animal.
  • Keep a kind voice, move slowly, and back away/get low if your energy might feel like a threat (if you are a bigger or have more power, for example).
  • Turn down lights or turn on music if that makes sense for the other person.
  • Say something to simply acknowledge the big feelings: “I understand that (this is hard, makes you mad, scares you…).”
  • Allow enough time for the brain finds a way back “upstairs.”
  • When things are calm, work together to describe the big feelings and the experience of being with those feelings. 

Use pictures to identify emotions: Charts to help identify emotions are easy to find. Here’s a link on Pinterest with dozens of examples of printable or hand-made options. Making a chart together can create learning on many levels. A teacher might have a feelings chart to share.

Notice that feelings aren’t who you are: This strategy is from a meditation technique called Integrative Restoration (iRest.org). Notice a feeling as separate from the bigger picture of who you really are. Here’s a statement to sort that out: I have feelings, but I’m not my feelings. What happens when that statement is made? Is it possible to catch feelings in the act of forming or changing? This can be a conversation you have in your own mind or with another person.

Explore feelings through the body: This technique is common in yoga. Ask someone else or yourself: What feelings are happening right now, and where is the body feeling them? Talk about how a feeling seems to “live” in a certain place—or travel around the body. There is no good, bad, right or wrong way to feel. Give yourself or a family member permission to move around and maybe make sound in a way that safely helps the emotion express itself.  GoNoodle.com offers additional strategies for children to explore movement and mindfulness.

Schedule mindfulness: Make sure that big feelings have time to be seen and heard. According to an article for parents from the Child Mind Institute, “Designating time to practice mindful activities as a family will help everyone feel less anxious. It could be a daily family yoga session, or a quiet walk in the woods as a group, taking time to focus on the way the air feels, the sound of the birds and the smell of the trees. Another good family mindfulness idea is asking everyone to mention one good thing they heard or saw that day over dinner.” The Child Mind Institute provides access to live video chats with clinicians, telemedicine and more. The agency provides guidance in English and Spanish and offers parents an opportunity to sign up for a COVID-19 tip of the day.

Breathe with trees and plants

A calming breath works like a life vest when it feels like emotions are rushing us downriver and threatening to take us under. The basic goal is to regulate the flow of oxygen into the bloodstream and to make sure that carbon dioxide is being expelled in a balanced way. Here’s one idea for a breath that might boost relaxation:

  • Find a place where you can see a tree or a plant. Notice details about the leaves, needles or branches.
  • Note that trees and plants release oxygen into the air.
  • Breathe in gently and feel like the plant or tree is giving oxygen to you.
  • Breathe out gently and consider that your carbon dioxide is the food the tree or plant needs.
  • Experience a moment of being grateful that nature is breathing with you. Say thank you if it feels good to say it out loud.

PAVE provides a 5-minute video to help you breathe with trees and plants!

Feeling panic? Breathe easy and smooth

When anxiety causes feelings of panic, easy is the magic word for breathing. Some evidence suggests that a stressed-out person might feel more anxious by taking breaths that are too slow or deep. Dizziness, shortness of breath and feelings of suffocation can be signs that the gases exchanged during a breath aren’t balanced well. Here’s one source for information about why even breathing might be more calming than a really big, deep breath: LiveScience.com.

Here’s something to practice regularly to help your body find its calm, easy breath:

  • Notice your breath and just watch it for a little bit.
  • Start counting as you inhale and notice how long that lasts.
  • Start to match the inhale count and the exhale count.
  • Don’t try to slow your breath down, but gently try to make each breath about the same, counting the same time on the inhale and the exhale.
  • Don’t work to fill or empty your lungs all the way. Keep it easy.
  • Try breathing evenly for at least a minute—longer if you enjoy it.

Bonus Ideas: Consider whether there’s a young person in your house who could learn this breath, practice and then teach it to someone else. Another idea is for a child to practice breathing with a stuffed animal. On their tummy, the stuffed animal goes for a ride. Being hugged, the animal can feel the breath too.

PAVE hopes the ideas in this article might help your family members organize themselves around days and weeks at home that might nourish everyone with moments of peace, personal growth and learning. Understanding how to be with big feelings and breathe with ease can take a bit of practice, but the result can build emotional resilience. We hope all can find simple ways to make emotional learning and self-care part of each day to support the well-being of all.

If you need direct support in caring for children with special educational or medical needs, please click Get Help from our home page, wapave.org.

For serious conditions related to mental health and to find a professional provider, contact the Washington Recovery Help Line: 866-789-1511.

The WA State Department of Health provides a Behavioral Health Toolbox for Families Supporting Children and Teens During the COVID-19 Pandemic, published in July 2020. Each age-specific section (toddlers, school-age children, teens) includes information on common emotional responses, helping children heal and grow, and managing feelings and behaviors children may experience.