A Body Scan for Sleep
Thoughts keep you awake; sensation puts you down. A lying-down body scan that walks attention from your toes to sleep.
The mind that keeps you awake at night runs on language: replays, rehearsals, lists, arguments you are winning retroactively. A body scan works because it moves attention out of that word-stream and into raw sensation, and sensation has two sleep-friendly properties: it exists only in the present, and it is fundamentally boring.
That is not an insult to the practice; it is the mechanism. Tracking the weight of your heels or the temperature of your hands gives your attention a real anchor with no plot, and without a plot to follow, the alerting system quiets down. Body scans are a core practice in mindfulness-based programs precisely because attention placed in the body tends to pull the whole nervous system toward settling.
The scan below is written for bed. If you prefer a guided voice, the recording from Mindful below is made for exactly this purpose; either path works.
Guided exercise
The lying-down scan
Step 1 of 6
Toes and feet
~45 secLying on your back, bring attention to your toes. No need to move or relax them; just notice whatever is there: warmth, contact, tingling, or nothing at all. Nothing is a fine answer.
Check-in
Where does your body hold the day?
Wherever you named just now is your shortcut: on nights when the full scan feels long, start there and let the rest of the body follow. Like all attention practices, the scan gets stronger with repetition, so give it a week of honest tries before deciding whether it is yours.
