so it often seems to happen that at night time our mind appears especially busy maybe it hits us as soon as we lie down on the bed maybe it even wakes us up in the middle of the night but when the mind is very busy it's very difficult to focus on anything else and it's certainly very difficult to let go enough to fall asleep or to fall back to sleep and a busy mind needs working with in a very particular way if it's busy we kind of need to give it something to do but we
don't want to give it so much to do that it continues to feel busy so there's a really simple technique takes a bit of patience but is really effective in quieting the mind in relaxing the body and in creating the conditions to either fall asleep or fall back to sleep to begin with though just make sure that you're comfortable that you're set up for going to sleep for the night or falling back to sleep ideally lying on your back at least for the beginning of this exercise you can always move afterwards and as you lie
there getting comfortable just taking a couple of big deep breaths breathing in through the nose out through the mouth as you breathe out each time feeling or at least imagining the body letting go of any tension feeling the weight of the body sink down into the mattress the surface beneath you and if you haven't done already with the next out breath just gently closing the eyes now if the mind is busy the body will often feel restless as well so just for the next minute i'd like you to gently place your hand on your stomach
you don't have to breathe in any special way but just for 60 seconds we're just going to stay with the feeling of the breath and the mind is going to want to draw you back into conversation the mind will want to chase after particular thoughts it's invested in remaining busy so we're just going to allow the mind to stay busy that's what it wants to do allow it to think and while it thinks we're just gently resting our attention on the breath and that rising and falling sensation created by the breath just for a few
more seconds just staying without feeling and then we're just going to count the breaths just one time from 10 down to one as you feel the rising sensation you count ten falling sensation nine then eight and seven all the way down to zero if the breaths are quite fast you get there quickly you can just repeat that again [Music] starting at 10 [Music] just following the breath counting down to zero just try that a couple of times through on your own now you can either continue with that each time just starting at 10. slowly counting
backwards with each breath down to zero as you follow the breath well this is a good time to just begin counting backwards so you you don't even need to focus on the breath at all here so remember with a busy mind we need to give it just enough so that it feels occupied but not so much that it feels busy so that we're able to relax both the body and the mind so in order to do that we're going to start at 10 000 in the mind our intention is to count back slowly steadily knowing
that the mind is going to wander sometimes knowing that we might even forget what number we're on but each time just coming back to the last number we remember and slowly counting down so it's a very gentle very slow very steady counting we don't need to worry about what the breath is doing we don't need to worry about any thoughts coming and going and accounting isn't tied to anything in particular we just find our own natural rhythm and begin to count backwards slow and steady if you find the mind is particularly busy you can even
visualize each number as you count it if that's too much then just focus on the counting itself just moving back through the numbers committed to counting all the way down to zero it's almost as though it's too much for the mind the mind has to surrender at some point but we just stay with it not forcing anything just creating the conditions as we continue to count downwards just continue with that for the next minute or so so a very gentle focus it shouldn't feel like a fight the mind remains busy let the mind be busy
temporarily pause the counting just come back to it picking it up and continuing a slow steady backward counting all the way down towards zero just staying with it and as we count with each new number it's as though the body gets a little heavier my mind finds it a little easier to let go of thinking and there's a greater sense of ease in both the body and the mind as we create the conditions to gently fall back to sleep again you
