Everyday Practices
Ten to One
For Counting Your Way Into Sleep
US$8 4 practices · 7 tracks · listen or download
Get the pack · US$8Some nights the body is tired and the mind keeps going. It replays the day, then finds one more thing to think about just as we’re about to drift off.
Minds do that, and we can’t switch them off by trying harder. What we can do is give the mind something simple to hold on to, like a number, and let the thoughts come and go around it. When we’re watching our thoughts, we’re a little less caught up in them. And from that place of watching, sleep has more room to arrive.
Most of these practices start with a little ritual I do before sleep: asking what three things went well today. Then come slow countdowns from ten to one. In some you count the thoughts that pop up. In others you just listen to the numbers and let your body sink into the bed.
There are four tracks here, including a Yoga Nidra and a sleepy reflection on what went well. The Countdowns comes in three lengths, and Counting Down to Sleep in a full and a shorter version, for the nights you want to be asleep sooner.
What’s inside
The Countdowns
3 versions
Full version · 36 minThree countdowns, with waves · 32 minMini version · 15 min
For when your mind is still busy at bedtime. After a little ritual of asking what three things went well today, you settle into the comfort in your body. Then come slow countdowns from ten to one, first counting any thoughts that pop up, then just listening to the numbers. Unlike Counting Down to Sleep, there are no safe-place words and no rain. The full version ends by letting go ‘into the spaciousness of awareness.’ The three-countdown version ends with waves, and the mini skips the thought-counting.
Counting Down to Sleep
2 versions
Full version · 33 minShorter version · 22 min
For nights when you’d like a little more reassurance around the counting. It runs like The Countdowns, with the same three-things ritual and countdowns, but adds three things: the words ‘All is well. I am safe’, an inner sanctuary to rest in, and an ending with the sound of rain and ‘I choose to drift away.’ The shorter version has three countdowns instead of five, and goes from the last one straight into the rain.
Yoga Nidra: The Eight Phases
34 min
For a longer practice that takes you down into deep rest. I explain the eight phases of Yoga Nidra, then guide you through them: two slow breaths, a short intention of your own, like ‘I choose to restore my body and mind’. a body scan, then the breath, then welcoming whatever feelings are there. You picture a place that’s yours and come back to your intention. It ends by bringing you back, wiggling fingers and toes, so it suits a daytime rest too.
What Went Well
26 min
For drifting off with a little appreciation. You settle into your usual sleeping position and think back to what went well today, ‘no matter how small’. Then come a few sleepy phrases, like ‘May I sleep soundly’, and the steady pull of gravity holding you in your bed. The words slow down into phrases about your body healing and restoring, with 528Hz Solfeggio tones underneath. My voice fades out around eighteen minutes in and the music carries on to the end.