Read time 2 mins
Includes an audio practice of 33 mins
Following on from last week’s blog, on interoception, your eighth sense, here’s a practice which which focuses on growing interoceptive awareness, and all of the benefits that come with that.
Body scan and yoga nidra are types of meditation which many people find easy to practice. It’s practiced lying down, can be done any time during the day or evening. You could also try it right before you go to bed, to lead into sleep.
So if you’d like to feel more at home in your body, more in tune with your needs in each moment, and have more emotional and nervous system regulation, this is a great practice to work with over a period of time.
It’s also a great one for resting deeply. With all of the sensory input we get these days, this is such a beneficial practice. This allows you to rest your senses, feel support from the earth and come back to your centre.
The benefits of this practice on Sleep
A recent study found that after two weeks of a daily body scan or yoga nidra practice, participants had improvements in :
Total sleep time
Sleep quality
sleep onset latency
Wake after sleep onset
This included a significant improvement in slow-wave sleep, which is extremely restorative and linked to improved :
Attention
Learning
Memory
Performance
Ways to adapt this practice to suit you:
Even though this is a still practice, for some people, it might be more comfortable to move through the practice. I encourage you to notice what you need and follow that - so if you would like to move and stretch / rock or any other movement as you go, follow the impulse to do that :)
Some people find it more restful to keep eyes open instead of closing them, again, I encourage you to noice what you need and follow that. You could also experiment with eyes half-open
I suggest lying on your back for this practice at the beginning of the recording, but you could instead choose any other position that feels comfortable - like sitting or lying on your side, for example
If the practice feels too much on a particular day - listen to that! If so, always feel free to stop the practice. You could come back to it another day. Our capacity for resting and relaxing, inward-sensing might have a limit on a partcular day, and this varies day to day. It’s a success rather than a failure to notice what you need.
More next week….
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Take care and thanks for reading / listening
Charlotte