20-minute guided gratitude practice for exhaustion — during a break

About this practice

For the times during a break when exhaustion takes up more room than you would like — 20 minutes, gratitude. A guided session of about 20 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: exhaustion

Exhaustion is what is left after the reserves are gone. The body has stopped asking; it is now insisting.

It tends to show up as:

• Feeling hollow and drained
• Emotionally flat
• Physical heaviness all day

This is not the state to push in. The whole point here is to ask nothing and let the body be heavy.

Doing this on a break

• Leave the room if you can
• Do not start anything else in the same gap
• Set a timer so the break has an end

A break spent half-engaged with a screen is not much of a break. Guard the whole five minutes.

How gratitude works

Gratitude here is an attention practice, not a demand for a positive mood. Attention defaults to threats because they are urgent, so pleasant and ordinary things get skipped simply for being safe.

• Pick one ordinary thing rather than something impressive
• Stay with it for two breaths — depth beats length of list
• Do not aim at feeling grateful; aim at noticing

What happens, minute by minute

1. 0:00Your breathing doesn't have to change yet. Let it be whatever size it currently is.
2. 0:14We are not forcing positivity. We are just noticing what went right, however small.
3. 0:28Bring your attention to the parts of you that are already still.
4. 0:41Notice your own pulse somewhere. Wrist, throat, wherever you can find it.
5. 0:54If you're holding your breath at the top, stop. There's no need to hold anything.
6. 1:08Follow the breath down into your belly and feel it come back up.
7. 1:21Notice your ribs on both sides. Wide, not squeezed.
8. 1:32Feel your calves, front and back.
9. 1:42Notice your whole body as one shape, sitting or lying here.
10. 1:54Notice your shins, which take small knocks all day and never complain.
11. 2:07Move to your forehead. Let it be smooth instead of gathered.
12. 2:19Think of the drained feeling that rest has not touched as a guest that arrived without knocking. You can let it stand in the hallway.
13. 2:38Feel the weight of the hollow tiredness somewhere specific, then let the floor take a share of it.
14. 2:54Let the breath be shallow if shallow is what your body wants.
15. 3:07Imagine the body asking you to stop as a room you can walk out of for a minute. The room will still be there.
16. 3:26Let the drained feeling that rest has not touched be exactly as big as it is, and let your breath be exactly as slow as it is. They can coexist.
17. 3:47Let the exhale fall out rather than pushing it.
18. 3:58Notice if you're waiting for something to happen. Nothing is scheduled.
19. 4:10Stay with it for two breaths. Gratitude deepens by staying, not by listing.
20. 4:23No words for a moment. Only the next breath.
21. 4:34Notice the exact moment your attention left. You probably won't catch it. That's normal.
22. 4:48Let it be unimpressive. Small good things are the most reliable ones.
23. 5:01Quiet for a moment. No need to fill it.
24. 5:12Your mind will leave about a hundred times. Come back about a hundred times.
25. 5:26If nothing comes, notice that something did not go wrong. That also counts.
26. 5:39Nothing to follow for a moment except your own breathing.
27. 5:51Notice if you've been frowning at your own thoughts.
28. 6:02There is no need to feel grateful. Just look, and see what is actually there.
29. 6:16I'll step back. You stay here.
30. 6:26Notice the moment you realise you've drifted. That moment is the whole skill.
31. 6:39Remain here for a few more breaths.
32. 6:49Breathe as if you had all evening. There's no rush in this part.
33. 7:02Notice the backs of your knees, which you feel more than you think.
34. 7:15Let's rest here in silence. It's short.
35. 7:25If your body wants to move, let it move, then come back.
36. 7:38Let it be this simple.
37. 7:47Notice where you feel the breath most clearly. Nose, chest, or belly — pick one and stay there.
38. 8:03Let your whole body be as heavy as it wants to be.
39. 8:16I'll stop for a moment. Take the pause at your own speed.
40. 8:29Notice anything you're holding onto from earlier today.
41. 8:40Nothing changes for a moment.
42. 8:49Breathe in through your nose and out through your nose, if that's comfortable.
43. 9:02Feel your palms. Warm or cool, either is fine.
44. 9:13A few quiet breaths. That's all this is.
45. 9:24Notice any tension that arrived while you weren't looking.
46. 9:35Start at the top of your head. Notice the scalp, which you almost never notice.
47. 9:49Notice the small pause before your body decides to breathe in again.
48. 10:02Stay with it.
49. 10:10Notice the pull to make this mean something. It doesn't have to.
50. 10:23A gap. Don't rush to fill it with thinking.
51. 10:34Notice where your body is still holding something. Leave it alone.
52. 10:46Let your shoulders stay still while your ribs move.
53. 10:57Let the pause stretch out.
54. 11:06If you're irritated, that's allowed. Irritation is just weather.
55. 11:17A short silence. Let it be empty.
56. 11:27Notice your elbows. Odd things to have, but there they are.
57. 11:39Feel the air as it passes the back of your throat. It's cooler going in.
58. 11:53Keep following the air.
59. 12:02Notice if you're being hard on yourself about any of this.
60. 12:14Let me stop talking. Follow the breath instead.
61. 12:25Feel your face. It's probably softer than it was five minutes ago.
62. 12:38Follow three breaths and let the fourth one go unobserved.
63. 12:50Let the quiet do its work.
64. 13:00Feel the parts of you that have gone quiet.
65. 13:11Notice if your breathing is faster than you expected. Don't correct it. Just note it.
66. 13:25Take the next breath slowly.
67. 13:34Now the right shoulder. Let it be a centimetre lower than it was.
68. 13:47Feel the last part of the exhale, where it turns into nothing.
69. 14:00Stay here a little longer.
70. 14:09Feel your upper back against whatever is behind it.
71. 14:20Count down from ten, one number per exhale.
72. 14:31No rush to move on.
73. 14:40Feel the tops of your thighs.
74. 14:50When the hollow tiredness arrives, name it once, quietly, and go back to the breath. Naming is not fixing, and that is fine.
75. 15:08Quiet now. The next part will wait for you.
76. 15:19There is a part of you that has handled hard moments before. That part is here now, even if it is quiet.
77. 15:37Let the breath move at the speed of a sleeping person.
78. 15:49Picture the drained feeling that rest has not touched as a weather front passing over. You are not the weather. You are the sky it moves through.
79. 16:09There is no correct amount of the hollow tiredness to be feeling right now. Whatever is here is the honest amount.
80. 16:26Let the breath be slow enough that you can hear it, just barely.
81. 16:39You do not have to like the body asking you to stop to breathe through it. Liking was never the requirement.
82. 16:56Imagine softening the edges of the drained feeling that rest has not touched. Not erasing it, just letting the sharp parts go a degree softer.
83. 17:15Let your belly rise first, then your chest, then the tops of your lungs.
84. 17:29If nothing much is happening, that's not a problem. Nothing much is often the point.
85. 17:43If you feel emotional, you don't have to explain it to anyone, including yourself.
86. 17:57Notice the tone of your own inner voice. Is it kind?
87. 18:09A few seconds of nothing now. That's on purpose.
88. 18:20Pick one ordinary thing from today — a warm drink, a dry walk, a message — and let it count.
89. 18:37Let this one be unhurried.
90. 18:46Start to notice the edges of your body again, and the surface you're on.
91. 19:00Come back to your body first, and the rest of the day second.

Questions people ask

Meditation is a practice, not a treatment. If you are dealing with ongoing distress, please also reach out to a professional.