Falling asleep: 15-minute noting meditation, in the queue

About this practice

Nothing to learn and nothing to fix: 15 minutes of noting for falling asleep, in the queue. A guided session of about 15 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 in a waiting room

• You can do this with your eyes open and your hands where they are
• Nothing here needs to look like a meditation
• Aim for steadiness rather than calm

Waiting feeds the dread it is meant to relieve. Having something specific to do with the time is the useful part.

How noting works

Noting is a technique from insight practice: when something arises, you give it a single plain label — thinking, hearing, planning — and return to the anchor. The label creates a small distance between you and the content.

• Use one word, not a sentence — explaining means you have joined in
• Label and return; do not follow the thought to see where it goes
• Drop the labelling if it becomes effortful and just follow the breath

What happens, minute by minute

1. 0:00Let your belly be soft. Not sucked in. Just soft.
2. 0:12We'll take this slowly, and there's no version of this where you get it wrong.
3. 0:26Now let your attention move from the room into your body, slowly, the way you'd move through a doorway you know well.
4. 0:44For the next few minutes, the only job is to notice what's already happening.
5. 0:58Notice if your breathing is faster than you expected. Don't correct it. Just note it.
6. 1:12Follow three breaths and let the fourth one go unobserved.
7. 1:24Feel your hips. Wide, heavy, and doing nothing.
8. 1:35Notice your pelvis resting on the surface below you.
9. 1:46Let your whole body be as heavy as it wants to be.
10. 1:59Feel the front of your chest. Notice it rise and fall once.
11. 2:12Notice your shins, which take small knocks all day and never complain.
12. 2:25Picture the surrender at the end of the day as a weather front passing over. You are not the weather. You are the sky it moves through.
13. 2:45If the slow drift toward sleep starts telling you a story, let the story finish without you adding to it.
14. 3:02Let the breath move at the speed of a sleeping person.
15. 3:14Whatever the thoughts that keep the light on is doing right now, your breathing can keep going underneath it.
16. 3:30You do not have to like the surrender at the end of the day to breathe through it. Liking was never the requirement.
17. 3:48Now feel both feet at once. That's a lot of contact with the world.
18. 4:02Stay a moment longer than is comfortable.
19. 4:12Feel the last part of the exhale, where it turns into nothing.
20. 4:25Feel your belly. Let it be soft instead of held in.
21. 4:37No rush to move on.
22. 4:46Notice your breathing getting quieter on its own, without you deciding anything.
23. 4:59Start at the top of your head. Notice the scalp, which you almost never notice.
24. 5:13Stay with it.
25. 5:21Let the breath get soft, the way it goes when someone is reading beside you.
26. 5:35Feel your calves, front and back.
27. 5:45Take the next breath slowly.
28. 5:54Let each breath out be a small letting go of the muscles around your ribs.
29. 6:08Notice the small movement in your belly when you breathe.
30. 6:20Nothing changes for a moment.
31. 6:29Count down from ten, one number per exhale.
32. 6:40Now the right shoulder. Let it be a centimetre lower than it was.
33. 6:53Let it be this simple.
34. 7:02Let the exhale fall out rather than pushing it.
35. 7:13I'll step back. You stay here.
36. 7:23Let this be easy, if easy is available.
37. 7:34Notice any tension that arrived while you weren't looking.
38. 7:45I'll be quiet for a moment. Stay with the breath.
39. 7:57There's no need to try harder than this.
40. 8:08Notice if you're being hard on yourself about any of this.
41. 8:20Let's pause. Just the breathing for a while.
42. 8:31We'll keep it quiet and unhurried.
43. 8:41Notice the tone of your own inner voice. Is it kind?
44. 8:53Silence. Let your shoulders drop again if they've crept up.
45. 9:05Small efforts are the whole method.
46. 9:15If you're distracted by a sound, let the sound be the object for a moment.
47. 9:29I'll leave a gap here. Use it however you like.
48. 9:41You can be as unimpressive as you like for the next few minutes.
49. 9:54If you're replaying a conversation, let it play. It'll finish on its own.
50. 10:07A gap. Don't rush to fill it with thinking.
51. 10:18Nothing here needs to be efficient.
52. 10:28If you're counting the minutes, that's fine. Count them and come back.
53. 10:41Let the breath be slow enough that you can hear it, just barely.
54. 10:54A few seconds of nothing now. That's on purpose.
55. 11:05Give the slow drift toward sleep a shape, a colour, a temperature. Turning it into something specific makes it easier to hold.
56. 11:23You have been carrying the thoughts that keep the light on for a while. You can set it down for the length of this session and pick it up after.
57. 11:44Feel the pause at the top of the in-breath. It's shorter than you think.
58. 11:58There is no correct amount of the surrender at the end of the day to be feeling right now. Whatever is here is the honest amount.
59. 12:17Think of the slow drift toward sleep as a guest that arrived without knocking. You can let it stand in the hallway.
60. 12:35Let your shoulders stay still while your ribs move.
61. 12:46If you're bored, stay with the boredom for a moment. It's usually thinner than it looks.
62. 13:01If you've lost track of where we were, you haven't lost anything important.
63. 13:14Notice whether you're breathing or holding. Start breathing again.
64. 13:25A few quiet breaths. That's all this is.
65. 13:36If you only manage half of it, that's half more than nothing.
66. 13:49Let the quiet do its work.
67. 13:59Notice the room again: the sounds, the temperature, the light.
68. 14:11Take a moment to notice you did this for yourself. That's not nothing.

Questions people ask

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