Sleep story: an attic room, if you are doing this in the middle of the day — for waking too early

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. The bed is pushed into the low corner, which makes it feel like a den.

A carrier bag of shopping is still on the chair, unpacked. The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table. There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years.

Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it.

Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed. Feel your heartbeat somewhere far away.

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.

Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth. Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other.

Feel the back of your knees soften into the bed. Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop.

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

Let the pillow take the whole weight of your head. Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up.

The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement. The air up here is warmer than downstairs and smells of old wood.

Let your lower back sink down into the mattress. Let the back of your neck lengthen out.

The rain on the roof tiles is much closer and louder up here than anywhere else in the house. The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement.

Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress. Your ankles can go loose now.

The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table. There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years.

Notice the tone of your own inner voice. Is it kind? Notice whether you're breathing or holding. Start breathing again.

Let your palms open if they were closed. Let your forearms get heavy and warm.

Just the weight. Follow the breath out, and let the next one arrive by itself.

Let your breathing do the rest. Slower now. Let the dark be ordinary.

Stay with the weight of your body. Nothing needs deciding tonight. Softer.

Midday is an underrated time for this.

No more sentences. Just the weight of you in the bed.