There are so many reasons why we might be struggling to get to sleep and stay asleep. Work or relationship stress, health concerns, hormonal changes, the state of the world—there’s plenty to keep us awake at night.

This week, Mark Bertin offers a soothing sleep practice to help settle our restlessness, using the breath as a calming anchor to gently coax our busy minds and tense bodies into rest.

Because this is a sleep meditation, there won’t be the usual recorded outro, so you can just drift off in silence.

Mark Bertin, MD, is a pediatrician, author, professor, and mindfulness teacher specializing in neurodevelopmental behavioral pediatrics. He’s a regular contributor to Mindful.org and Psychology Today. He is the author of How Children Thrive: The Practical Science of Raising Independent, Resilient, and Happy Kids (Sounds True, 2018). Dr. Bertin resides in Pleasantville, New York. For more, visit developmentaldoctor.com.

The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week.

Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app.

Show Notes

Find more from Dr. Mark Bertin here.

Go Deeper

For help understanding how mindfulness can make sleep better and more restorative, check out these resources from Mindful.org:

• The Ultimate Guide to Mindfulness for Sleep

• Why We Wake Up At Night and How Mindfulness Helps Us Sleep Again

• The Science of Deep Sleep

• 8 Tips for Better Sleep at Night

Mindful has a wonderful collection of sleep meditations. If you want to try another version of a body scan, A 12-Minute Body Scan Meditation for Letting Go of Stress and Falling Asleep is a great place to start.

And more from Mindful here:

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Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.

Daily life is full of irritations: moments of inconvenience, situations where we don’t get what we were hoping for, delays, disappointments, prickly interactions that can leave us confused and exasperated.

If we’re honest, we can probably admit that sometimes our reactions in those moments tend to be reflexive rather than intentional. We feel our anger or annoyance rise, and we react almost as though we’re reading a script.

Can we explore these habitual reactions in a way that gives us enough space to respond differently? In today’s practice, teacher Patricia Rockman guides us through a meditation to help us meet whatever is arising, so that we have more agency when the next moment arises.

Patricia Rockman, MD, CCFP, FCFP is a family physician with a focused practice in mental health. She is the senior director of Education and Clinical Services at the Centre for Mindfulness Studies, Toronto. Rockman is also an associate professor at the University of Toronto, Department of Family Medicine, cross appointed to Psychiatry. She has extensive experience practicing individual psychotherapy, leading therapy groups, and training healthcare providers in mindfulness-based interventions, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and change management for stress reduction. She is a freelance writer, yoga teacher, and meditation practitioner.

The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week.

Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app.

Show Notes

Find more from Patricia Rockman here.

Go Deeper

For more resources to explore reactivity and choice, check out these resources from Mindful.org:

• The “About To” Moment: Teaching and Modeling Response vs. Reaction

• Emotional Rescue: Using Mindfulness to Reset Your Reactions

• You Can Investigate Your Emotions Without Suppressing Them

• Tame Reactive Emotions by Naming Them

For more practice with compassionately looking at and interrupting unconscious reactivity, try The S.T.O.P. Practice: Creating Space Around Automatic Reactions.

And more from Mindful here:

More episodes of 12 Minute MeditationLet us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.

It’s not always an instinctual go-to for us, but self-compassion is one of the most powerful forms of healing and restoration for our mental and physical well-being.

In this meditation, mindfulness teacher Shamash Alidina offers three ways to show compassion for yourself when you’re stressed and need a reset.

Shamash Alidina has been practising mindfulness since 1998 and runs his own successful training organisation. He is the author of Mindfulness For Dummies and most recently, The Mindful Way Through Stress. He frequently pops up in newspapers, magazines and on radio shows. Based in London, he runs online trainings and speaks at conferences all over the world. He’s been teaching mindfulness full-time since 2010.

The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week.

Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter mindful.org/signup or download the app for free at mindful.org/app.

Show Notes

Find more from Shamash Alidina here.

Go Deeper

For more resources to help meet stress, balance your nervous system, and tap into resilience, check out these resources from Mindful.org:

• Deep Resilience: The Wisdom of Making Friends with Your Mind

• Swimming, Walking, Running—Why Mindful Movement Can Boost Resilience

• Why Your Outbreath is Connected to Your Well-Being

• You Don’t Have to Shut Down or Burn Out When You Care This Much. Do This Instead.

For more practice tending to your nervous system with self-compassion, try A 12-Minute Body Scan Meditation for Self-Compassion and Presence.

And more from Mindful here:

More episodes of 12 Minute Meditation

Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.