Breathing for falling asleep: 10 minutes, when you wake at 3am

About this practice

10 minutes to meet falling asleep with less of a fight. A breathing practice, when you wake at 3am. A guided session of about 10 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: falling asleep

Falling asleep is a passive process. The harder you aim at it, the further it moves, because the effort itself is arousal.

It tends to show up as:

• Watching the clock
• Getting frustrated at being awake
• Sleep only arriving after giving up

Attention on something boring and continuous is the oldest trick there is. That is all a sleep story is doing.

Doing this at 3am

• Do not check the time and do not turn on a light
• Stay lying down if you can — sitting up makes it harder to return to sleep
• Do not try to solve anything that arrives at this hour

Problems at 3am feel enormous because of chemistry, not because they are actually bigger. Defer them.

How breathing works

A breathing practice uses the breath as the object of attention and as the control lever. Because exhaling slows the heart through the vagus nerve, it acts on the nervous system directly rather than through thinking.

• Keep the exhale longer than the inhale — that is the active ingredient
• Count the exhales and start again whenever you lose count
• Do not force depth; let the breath find its own level

What happens, minute by minute

1. 0:00You don't have to empty your mind. Nobody has ever managed that, including the people who wrote the instructions.
2. 0:16Let the counting do the work. When you lose the count, start again from one — no penalty.
3. 0:32If it helps, imagine your attention is a torch beam. Right now it's wide and soft.
4. 0:47Let your attention settle on the space between your nose and your upper lip, where the air passes.
5. 1:03Let the exhale fall out rather than pushing it.
6. 1:14Notice the small pause before your body decides to breathe in again.
7. 1:27Feel the back of your neck. That's a place that holds a lot.
8. 1:40Notice your wrists. They bend a lot in a day.
9. 1:52Notice where your body is still holding something. Leave it alone.
10. 2:04Feel your hips. Wide, heavy, and doing nothing.
11. 2:15Imagine softening the edges of the slow drift toward sleep. Not erasing it, just letting the sharp parts go a degree softer.
12. 2:33Whatever the thoughts that keep the light on is doing right now, your breathing can keep going underneath it.
13. 2:49Notice the difference between a thought and the space around it.
14. 3:01Your anchor for the next few minutes is the breath itself. Nothing else needs following.
15. 3:15Let's rest here in silence. It's short.
16. 3:25Notice if you're being hard on yourself about any of this.
17. 3:37There is no target number here. Only the next breath, and then the one after it.
18. 3:52A few quiet breaths. That's all this is.
19. 4:03If your mind has wandered, that's not a mistake. Noticing is the practice.
20. 4:16Follow the air from the nostrils down to the belly, then back out. One full trip at a time.
21. 4:32I'll leave a gap here. Use it however you like.
22. 4:44Let the in-breath be short and the out-breath unhurried.
23. 4:55A few seconds more.
24. 5:04Let the whole of your right foot be heavy.
25. 5:15Notice the breath you're taking right now. That's the only one that exists.
26. 5:28Let it be this simple.
27. 5:37Notice your ribs on both sides. Wide, not squeezed.
28. 5:48Let the exhale empty you a little more than usual, but not to the point of strain.
29. 6:03Let the pause stretch out.
30. 6:12Notice your toes, starting with the big one on the left.
31. 6:24Feel your breath move down your back, all the way to your lower ribs.
32. 6:38Pause here. Count three breaths if you need an anchor.
33. 6:50Each time your mind hands you the surrender at the end of the day, treat it like a leaf on a stream. Present for a moment, then carried on.
34. 7:11Notice how the slow drift toward sleep changes shape when you stop resisting it. Usually it gets smaller, not bigger.
35. 7:28Let your breathing be boring. Boring is good here.
36. 7:39Picture the thoughts that keep the light on as a weather front passing over. You are not the weather. You are the sky it moves through.
37. 7:58If you're thinking about the next thing on your list, that list will still be there.
38. 8:13If you've lost track of where we were, you haven't lost anything important.
39. 8:26Quiet now. The next part will wait for you.
40. 8:37Keep the exhale a little longer than the inhale. That is the entire technique.
41. 8:51Let the quiet do its work.
42. 9:01Start to notice the edges of your body again, and the surface you're on.
43. 9:15Before you open your eyes, notice how you feel compared to the start. It might be small.
44. 9:30Stay here a little longer.

Questions people ask

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