Sleep Awareness Exercises with Lucy Wolfe

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Article and images sourced from Lucy Wolfe from Sleep Matters.

Breathing Awareness Exercise

  • Lie down on your back with your arms relaxed by your sides. Take a few seconds to get comfortable.
  • Bring your awareness to your breathing. Can you feel your breath coming in and going out?
  • There’s no right way to breathe. Just relax and breathe normally.
  • Try to imagine the air is coming from far away, and you blow it out to a distant place.
  • You might also say the words ‘in’ and ‘out’ in your mind to match your breathing. Or perhaps think of the word ‘relax’ on each out breath.
  • Concentrate on your chest rising and falling – can you feel it? few minutes or until you feel too sleepy to continue.
  • Can you taste or smell the air as you breathe in? Is it cool or warm?
  • Your mind will probably wander at some point, and thoughts may arise.
  • Don’t worry if you have thoughts. Acknowledge them, and then gently bring your focus back to your breathing.
  • As you continue breathing, feel your body gently sink into your mattress little by little.
  • You can do this breathing exercise any time you feel the need to during the day. Just 5 minutes can help, but you might like to build up to 20 minutes over time.

And if you do it in bed, you can either do if it for a few minutes or until you feel too sleepy to continue.

Body Scan Exercise

  • Lie down and get yourself comfortable.
  • Imagine your mind leaving your head, and travelling through your body to one of your feet.
  • How does your foot feel? Is it relaxed, tense or sore? Is it hot or cold?
  • Don’t make any judgments on how it feels – simply scan and observe how you feel.
  • Imagine your toe and foot muscles tightening, and relaxing again.
  • Then take your mind up to your calf, knee and thigh.
  • Stop in each body part to repeat the scanning, muscle tensing and relaxing.
  • Repeat the exercise with your other leg.
  • Move to a hand and work your way up both arms.
  • Scan, tense and relax your back, stomach, chest, shoulders and face.
  • You can either imagine your muscles tensing and relaxing, or physically tense and relax them – do what feels best.
  • You’ll know it’s starting to work when your limbs begin to feel heavy and you’re happy to sink comfortably into your mattress.
  • You might find your mind wanders at times. Acknowledge any thoughts that arise in a positive way, but bring your mind gently back to the exercise.