3 Short Mindfulness Exercises to Beat Sleepless Nights

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Woohoo! It’s bedtime! 

And you’re exhausted. 

You get in bed, turn out the lights, and close your eyes.

But you can’t sleep.

You roll over. You try a new position. 

Nope. Still awake. 

Your mind races with a truck load of thoughts, your chest is tight, and your body fidgets about as much as an impatient preschooler. 

Wouldn’t it be cool if conquering sleepless nights was as simple as telling the body to “sleep” or “just relax?” Unfortunately, it takes more than that. 

That’s where mindfulness can help.

So, what’s mindfulness?

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. is a best-selling author, professor, scientist and mindfulness teacher. Here’s what he has to say:

“Mindfulness is an awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Basically, mindfulness helps us focus more on the present, and less on what happened today or what will happen tomorrow.

Practicing mindfulness changed my life in many ways, including improving my sleep.

Before we use these short mindfulness exercises to help us sleep, make sure you’re ready for bed: teeth brushed, lights out, etc. We want to give our body permission to fall asleep peacefully after the bedtime meditations.

Ready to catch some Zzzs?

Let’s get started!

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1. The Reliable Body Scan

A body scan calls attention to individual parts of our body. It helps us connect with how our body is feeling. This meditation can last 5 minutes, or even 30 minutes.

In this sleep meditation, take as much time as you need to focus on each body part.

1. Lay on your back on your bed. 
2. Close your eyes.
3. Place your hands at your sides with palms up or down.
4. Take three deep, slow breaths, opening up and loosening your chest and shoulders.
5. Call attention to your toes and how they feel. Then slide your focus down to the bottoms of your feet and your arches. How does the air feel around your feet? Cool? Warm? Move lower to your heels. Notice the feeling of the blanket or sheets under your feet.
6. Bring your attention up, towards your ankles. Are they tight? Loose? Don’t pass judgement on any tension you feel, and don’t worry about flexing or stretching them to relieve the tension. Instead, be aware of any sensations.
7. Slide your focus up your calves and shins, acknowledging the feel of the bed beneath your legs. 
8. As you keep breathing, swirl your thoughts around to your knee caps. First, consider your thighs and then move your focus to your hamstrings.
9. Pull your attention to your glutes and hips. Are the muscles tight? Relaxed? Again, don’t pass judgement or try to relax any tension, but be aware of what you feel and move on.
10. Take a moment to breathe slowly. Deeply.
11. Then wrap your thoughts around to your stomach and chest. Feel how your breath swirls in your chest and stomach on an inhale. And then exhale. Spend a couple of breaths here.
12. Direct your awareness to your back now, starting at your tailbone. With your inhale, work your way up your spine, paying attention to the feeling of your back against the bed. Notice any knots or tension.
13. When you arrive at your shoulders, center your thoughts on your shoulder blades in your upper back, then slowly crawl your focus around your upper arms, to your collarbone and then let your focus fall to the back of your neck. Don’t pass judgment on any tension you may feel along the way.
14. Drop your thoughts down each arm, slowly moving along the upper arms and then your lower arms. Once you reach your hands, consider the feel of your palms and any air or fabric touching them. Then bring your attention to the tips of each finger.
15. Glide your thoughts up your arms and neck until they reach your jaw. Feel if you’re clenching your jaw or grinding your teeth. Or if your mouth is open and relaxed. Circle your attention to your cheeks and slide up over your cheek bones. 
16. Focus on the tip of your nose before moving up the bridge to your eyes. Allow your thoughts to circle around behind your eyes before moving up your forehead. Breathe.
17. Follow your hairline down towards your ears and travel along the circles of your ears until they reach the center. 
18. Then pull your thoughts up the back of your ears and along your scalp. 
19. Drive all of your thoughts to the top of your head before expanding your awareness to your entire body.
20. Release your focus when you’re ready and if you’d like, open your eyes.

Move into your favorite sleep position after this short mindfulness exercise and let yourself peacefully fall asleep.

2. The Underestimated Pebble Meditation

When I first did this mindfulness meditation for sleep, I felt uncomfortable.

I mean, following a pebble as it sinks to the bottom of a pond seemed kind of ludicrous.

However, when utilizing this as a bedtime meditation, and associating it with sinking deeper into the dark lagoon of sleep, I suddenly loved it!

This guided meditation is from one of my favorite books called The Little Book of Mindfulness by Dr. Patrizia Collard. The 5-10 minute mindfulness and meditation exercises throughout the book seriously helped me in my mindfulness journey. 

Ok, ready to use your imagination? For this short mindfulness exercise, it’s a must!

Let’s get creative!

Lay on your back on your bed and close your eyes.

Start by building the setting: You’re standing (or sitting) at the end of a pond. How this pond looks is totally up to you. But think about what pond or stream settings in nature bring you joy and peace. Use those to paint the picture for this activity. I’ll share my setting with you as a guide, but feel free to skip if it’s not needed.

EXAMPLE: I imagine tall trees with a thick, green canopy overhead. Warm sunlight pierces through the leaves and casts golden spots over the shore and sparkles on the ripples in the water. Dark and light green shrubbery make up the border of the pond’s shore, along with a sprinkling of bright yellow and soft purple wildflowers. The small, smooth pebbles under my bare toes are cool and gently massage my feet as I step closer to the edge. 

The water is clear and I can see larger, fist-sized stones at the base of the shallow pond. Small fish flit this way and that beneath the water’s surface and a red dragonfly buzzes low over the pool.

I close my eyes and hear the trickling of water falling over stones somewhere at the pond’s edge where the creek pours in. And the wind whispers as it passes through the leaves above me.

Now, you have your scene painted. Let’s find a pebble.

1. Pick up one of the small, flat pebbles from the shore.
2. Toss it into the pond and as it leaves your hand, leave your body and travel with the pebble. 
3. Focus on any thoughts and feelings you have as it breaks the surface. 
4. Stay with it as it begins to sink. Consider any sensations you experience as it drifts to the bottom. This sinking process may pass as quickly or slowly as you’d like. Sometimes I see this in slow motion so I have time to process it and any feelings I have.
5. Follow the pebble until it settles on the bottom. Notice any thoughts or messages that may come to you. Beware of them, but don’t worry about handling the thoughts now.
6. Remain at the bottom of the pond for a while and breathe. You can imagine sensations you may feel around you, like the filtered light coming through the top of the water, or the cool water against your skin. Pay attention to now and breathe slowly for as long as you need before transitioning into sleep.

This one took me awhile, but when I feel imaginative, it’s one of my go-tos when I have trouble falling asleep.

3. The Meandering Follow Your Breath

This short mindfulness exercise is similar to the body scan, but instead of focusing on your body, we focus on the breath as it travels through the body. We will follow the breath three times to each body point listed below, allowing the breath to release tension in each area.

1. Lay on your bed and close your eyes.
2. Take three deep breaths, or more if needed. Once you feel the tension in your chest begin to relax, you can move on.
3. As you inhale, think about your chest and stomach rising, and then as you exhale, slowly sink into the bed beneath your back. Repeat this two more times. Feel your body get heavier and fall deeper into the bed.
4. Let’s follow your breath downward. Inhale, then with the exhale, imagine sending your breath down your stomach to your hips. Inhale, follow your breath back to your chest. Exhale, send it back to your hips. Repeat
5. On the last inhale, return to your chest. Exhale and travel with your breath to the tops of your thighs. Inhale, back to your chest. Exhale, return to your thighs. And on the final breath, let your thighs get heavy and sink deeper into the bed.
6. Inhale slowly back to your chest. Exhale to your knees. Follow your breath to your chest for the inhale and send it back to your knees for the exhale. Repeat two times.
7. As we get lower, if it becomes harder to send breath along your body to the designated location, think of that body part while you exhale.
8. With your next inhale, send the exhaled breath all the way to your calves. Repeat and on the third exhale, let your calves relax and grow heavy.
9. Return to your chest for the inhale, and journey with your exhale all the way down your body to the tips of your toes.
10. As you inhale, send your breath along the bottoms of your feet and back of your legs until it reaches your back and chest. Exhale and send it along the top of your legs back to your toes. Repeat two more times.
11. Take three breaths before we move back to the upper body.
12. On an exhale, send your breath to your shoulders. Let any extra exhaled breath flow out of your shoulders and sink into the mattress.
13. Inhale and send your breath down your upper arms to your elbows, focusing on the point where your elbows touch the bed. Repeat two times.
14. Inhale again and on the exhale send breath to your palms and fingertips, letting any extra breath from the exhale flow out of the tips of your fingers. Repeat two times.
15. Inhale and send breath up your neck to the point below your ears where your jaw bone connects to your skull. On the exhale, let your jaw loosen if it’s clenched and then send breath back to your chest. Repeat two more times. 
16. Travel to your eyes next. Allow your breath to massage any tension between your eyebrows. Inhale back to your chest. Repeat two times, massaging any other areas around your eyes that are tight.
17. Finally, inhale slowly, letting your chest lift, then send your exhale to the top of your head. Let your breath swirl around your scalp, massaging any areas of tension, or send your breath to the top of your head and allow it to flow down the outside of your body. Repeat two or three times.

If you’re still awake after this bedtime meditation, open your eyes, or leave them closed and move into your favorite sleeping position.

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Can Practicing Mindfulness Help You Sleep?

Imagine a night when you don’t stay up tossing and turning for hours.

Imagine a day when you aren’t exhausted from another sleepless night. 

Imagine your sleep tracker saying you caught a peaceful night’s rest. 

It’s possible. 

We deserve to feel more relaxed and less stressed at bedtime. We deserve time before bed to reconnect with our body and transition into the blissful abyss of dreams. 

If a short mindfulness exercise can grant us the sleep we need, it’s worth a try.

Let me know in the comments below how you felt after trying these short mindfulness exercises. And if you use any other bedtime meditations to help you fall asleep, please share!

Stay mindful, even when your mind’s full.
~Chelsea