Sleep story: an attic room, after eating too much — for a night when you do not want to think

The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table. The air up here is warmer than downstairs and smells of old wood. The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement.

The bed is pushed into the low corner, which makes it feel like a den. There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years. A carrier bag of shopping is still on the chair, unpacked.

Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up. Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out.

Your elbows can stop being hinges for now. Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth.

The rain on the roof tiles is much closer and louder up here than anywhere else in the house. The radiator is small and makes a ticking sound as it cools.

Notice the places where your body touches the bed, and let them be heavy. Let your feet get heavy first. Heavier than they need to be.

Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be.

There is a dormer window with a deep sill, and a mug left on it from last night. The rain changes intensity every few minutes and never quite stops.

Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress. Your jaw can drop slightly. Let your teeth part.

The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks. The room is in the roof, and the ceiling slopes so steeply that you have to duck near the window.

Feel your heartbeat somewhere far away. Feel your wrists loosen.

The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table. The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks.

Notice how much of you has already stopped moving. Let the mattress take all of it.

If you've lost track of where we were, you haven't lost anything important. Notice whether you're breathing or holding. Start breathing again.

Let your toes stop holding on to anything. Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine.

Let the sound of this go soft at the edges. Let the room get slightly further away.

Stay with the weight of your body. Just the dark. Stay.

Let each breath be a little smaller than the last. Let your attention settle somewhere low, like your feet. They will find their own way out.

Do this sitting up, not lying down, if you have just eaten.

That is the end of the story. Sleep is the next part, and it does not need instructions.