Insomnia: 10-minute breathing meditation, between meetings

About this practice

Slow, spoken guidance for insomnia. A breathing session you can do between meetings. A guided session of about 10 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 between meetings

• Start it in the gap, not after the next one begins
• Write down the open thread from the last meeting first, then let it go
• Two minutes done beats five minutes planned

The back-to-back day is exactly why the gap has to be protected rather than used for one more task.

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. 0:00Let your tongue rest down, away from the roof of your mouth.
2. 0:13Follow the air from the nostrils down to the belly, then back out. One full trip at a time.
3. 0:29Imagine your thoughts as traffic on a road you're standing beside. You don't have to flag any of it down.
4. 0:46Let your attention rest on the out-breath. The in-breath can take care of itself.
5. 1:00Notice the small gap after each exhale. Rest there for half a second.
6. 1:13Count four breaths silently. Then stop counting and just follow.
7. 1:25Notice your hands again. Check whether they've loosened on their own.
8. 1:37Notice your breathing, without changing it.
9. 1:47Start at the top of your head. Notice the scalp, which you almost never notice.
10. 2:01Let the whole of your right foot be heavy.
11. 2:12If the frustration of not sleeping has been with you all day, it is probably tired too. Let it rest alongside you.
12. 2:30When the wide-awake mind at 2am arrives, name it once, quietly, and go back to the breath. Naming is not fixing, and that is fine.
13. 2:49Notice whether you're breathing or holding. Start breathing again.
14. 3:00If the breath feels tight, do not deepen it. Just watch it, and let it find its own depth.
15. 3:16No words for a moment. Only the next breath.
16. 3:27If you're sleepy, sit up a little. Or let the sleepiness be there.
17. 3:40Keep the exhale a little longer than the inhale. That is the entire technique.
18. 3:54I'll step back. You stay here.
19. 4:04Your mind will leave about a hundred times. Come back about a hundred times.
20. 4:18Your anchor for the next few minutes is the breath itself. Nothing else needs following.
21. 4:32A gap. Don't rush to fill it with thinking.
22. 4:43Notice how you're sitting. Adjust if you need to. Then settle again.
23. 4:56If you're holding your breath at the top, stop. There's no need to hold anything.
24. 5:10No need to open your eyes yet.
25. 5:20Feel your face. It's probably softer than it was five minutes ago.
26. 5:33Feel your breath move down your back, all the way to your lower ribs.
27. 5:47Let it be this simple.
28. 5:56Feel your forearms, from the elbow down to the wrist.
29. 6:08Let the breath get soft, the way it goes when someone is reading beside you.
30. 6:22No rush to move on.
31. 6:31Feel your upper back against whatever is behind it.
32. 6:42Feel the air move past your upper lip. It's the coolest spot on the way in.
33. 6:57Silence. Let your shoulders drop again if they've crept up.
34. 7:09Nothing about the counting of hours until morning has to be explained or justified in this room.
35. 7:24You are allowed to be unimpressed by the frustration of not sleeping. Indifference is a legitimate response.
36. 7:39Feel the pause at the top of the in-breath. It's shorter than you think.
37. 7:53You do not have to win against the wide-awake mind at 2am. You only have to breathe until the next moment arrives.
38. 8:11If you're judging your performance, that's the same habit as judging everything else.
39. 8:24If nothing much is happening, that's not a problem. Nothing much is often the point.
40. 8:38A few seconds of nothing now. That's on purpose.
41. 8:49There is no target number here. Only the next breath, and then the one after it.
42. 9:04A few seconds more.
43. 9:13Let your shoulders come back up to their usual place, if they want to.
44. 9:27Stretch whatever feels stiff, then carry on.

Questions people ask

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