7-minute guided grounding practice for insomnia — at the airport

About this practice

Slow, spoken guidance for insomnia. A grounding session you can do at the airport. A guided session of about 7 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: insomnia

Insomnia is often maintained by the fear of not sleeping. Anticipating a bad night raises arousal at bedtime, which produces the bad night.

It tends to show up as:

• Dreading bedtime
• Hours awake with a busy mind
• Sleeping worse as the week goes on

Removing the pressure to sleep is the active ingredient. This gives you something to do that is not trying.

Doing this on a plane

• Use headphones, and keep the seatbelt on
• Bring a layer — being cold works against settling
• Skip alcohol; it makes the alertness worse

Cabin noise is constant and will mask the audio more than you expect. Try the headphones before you settle in.

How grounding works

Grounding brings attention to physical contact and the immediate environment. It works on the principle that the body cannot be somewhere else, so contact with the surface you are on is always available as an anchor.

• Feel the contact points — feet, seat, back — and let them take your weight
• Use the senses deliberately: what you can see, hear, touch
• Return to solidity whenever attention drifts

What happens, minute by minute

1. 0:00Let your eyes soften. Not closed, just less busy.
2. 0:11The floor is holding you right now. You do not have to hold yourself up.
3. 0:25If it helps, imagine your attention is a torch beam. Right now it's wide and soft.
4. 0:40Imagine your thoughts as traffic on a road you're standing beside. You don't have to flag any of it down.
5. 0:57Notice the difference between the breath at the front of your nose and the breath in your chest.
6. 1:13Count four breaths silently. Then stop counting and just follow.
7. 1:25Feel the parts of you that have gone quiet.
8. 1:36Notice your heels making contact with the floor or the bed.
9. 1:48Feel your face. It's probably softer than it was five minutes ago.
10. 2:01Notice the space around the counting of hours until morning. It is there, even if it is small. Put your attention in that space.
11. 2:20You do not have to like the frustration of not sleeping to breathe through it. Liking was never the requirement.
12. 2:37Notice your toes, starting with the big one on the left.
13. 2:49No need to open your eyes yet.
14. 2:59Let the exhale fall out rather than pushing it.
15. 3:10Notice the difference between a thought and the space around it.
16. 3:22I'll leave a gap here. Use it however you like.
17. 3:34Feel the contact points — feet, seat, back. That contact is the whole anchor.
18. 3:48If a song is stuck in your head, let it play in the background.
19. 4:02If you're holding your breath at the top, stop. There's no need to hold anything.
20. 4:16Let me stop talking. Follow the breath instead.
21. 4:27Let the wide-awake mind at 2am be exactly as big as it is, and let your breath be exactly as slow as it is. They can coexist.
22. 4:47Say to yourself: this is uncomfortable, and I can stay with it for one more breath. Then take that breath.
23. 5:04Let your belly rise first, then your chest, then the tops of your lungs.
24. 5:18If a worry shows up, name it quietly and let it sit beside you.
25. 5:32Notice if your attention is in the future. Bring it back to the room.
26. 5:46I'll be quiet for a moment. Stay with the breath.
27. 5:58If your mind has gone somewhere else, the floor under you has not moved. Start from there.
28. 6:13If you're going straight back to work, take ten seconds at the doorway first.
29. 6:27Let your breathing go back to whatever it does when nobody is watching.

Questions people ask

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