Sleep: 7-minute grounding meditation, before work

About this practice

7 minutes to meet sleep with less of a fight. A grounding practice, before work. A guided session of about 7 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: sleep

Sleep arrives on a downslope, not on command. Arousal has to fall for some minutes before the switch flips, and trying harder keeps it up.

It tends to show up as:

• Getting a second wind at bedtime
• Mind starting up as soon as the light goes off
• Sleep arriving much later than you intended

The practice is to stop steering. Following a slow voice occupies the part of the mind that would otherwise be trying.

Doing this before a busy day

• Do it before the first message or notification
• Aim for steadiness rather than energy
• Decide the first task afterwards, not during

The point is to begin without already being behind, not to prepare for every possibility.

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. 0:00Take one breath that is slightly slower than the last one. That is enough to start.
2. 0:15The floor is holding you right now. You do not have to hold yourself up.
3. 0:29Let your breathing find its own pace. We're only going to watch it.
4. 0:42Settle into the fact that for the next few minutes, nothing is required of you.
5. 0:56Let the breath get soft, the way it goes when someone is reading beside you.
6. 1:10Let the breath move at the speed of a sleeping person.
7. 1:22Notice your shins, which take small knocks all day and never complain.
8. 1:35Feel your palms. Warm or cool, either is fine.
9. 1:46Notice your heels making contact with the floor or the bed.
10. 1:58Notice the space around the heaviness your body already knows. It is there, even if it is small. Put your attention in that space.
11. 2:17Nothing about the day folding itself up has to be explained or justified in this room.
12. 2:32Notice your eyebrows. They're probably doing something small right now.
13. 2:44Let this one be unhurried.
14. 2:53Count down from ten, one number per exhale.
15. 3:04Notice your pelvis resting on the surface below you.
16. 3:15If you're irritated, that's allowed. Irritation is just weather.
17. 3:26A short silence. Let it be empty.
18. 3:36Come back to the solid things: weight, temperature, surface. They are always available.
19. 3:49Notice how you're sitting. Adjust if you need to. Then settle again.
20. 4:02Let the out-breath be a little longer than the in-breath, without forcing it.
21. 4:15Silence for a few breaths. Nothing to do in it.
22. 4:27There is no correct amount of the quiet your mind keeps postponing to be feeling right now. Whatever is here is the honest amount.
23. 4:46Picture the heaviness your body already knows as a weather front passing over. You are not the weather. You are the sky it moves through.
24. 5:05Notice the breath you're taking right now. That's the only one that exists.
25. 5:18Notice any urge to check something. You can wait two more minutes.
26. 5:31If you feel emotional, you don't have to explain it to anyone, including yourself.
27. 5:45Quiet now. The next part will wait for you.
28. 5:56Name what you can see, hear and touch. Counting senses is not a distraction; it is the practice.
29. 6:12Notice the quiet you made, and let it close gently.
30. 6:24Come back to your body first, and the rest of the day second.
31. 6:37Let your body keep settling.

Questions people ask

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