Normally, I like to ease into an episode. I'll talk for a while first, and we don't usually get near the actual sleep part for a good 10 minutes. Tonight, we're starting almost right away. But there is one thing that I can't skip, and that's our little disclaimer. Here we go. This episode uses light hypnotherapy and relaxation techniques. that are designed to help you sleep. So please ensure that you are somewhere safe when listening. Preferably, that's your comfortable bed and not anywhere.You need to stay alert. And before we begin, let's take a few minutes and make sure everything around you is as good as it possibly can be. Because a room that's working with you can help a lot.So make it dark. If there's a light on somewhere, or a curtain that's not quite closed, or some little light glowing on a shelf, sort it out now. Your body also needs to cool slightly to fall asleep.So if your room is warm, open a window if that helps. If you're wearing something that's too warm, take it off. When it comes to sleep, a cool room and a warm bed is what we're after.And quiet. If you can't make it quiet, then that's okay. My voice will cover a lot of it. I know we don't always have complete control over that. And if you've been lying here for an hour, tossing and turning, your bed is probably a mess by now. Maybe the sheet's pulled loose, and everything is warm in the wrong places.Get up and fix it. Sounds like a fussy thing, but a bed that feels fresh again is worth the 90 seconds. Shake it out and smooth the sheet. Turn the pillow over to the cool side. One last thing. You need to sleep tonight. I know that feeling. But wanting sleep badly is one of the surest ways to not get it. Wanting is a kind of effort.An effort keeps you awake. You might fall asleep quickly tonight. In fact, you probably will. But if you don't, you'll still be all right. You'll get up tomorrow, and you'll do the things, and you might be a bit slower than usual. But you'll manage.  So now, let's help you get settled. I want you to be as comfortable as you possibly can. Find the right position. The way you like to be for sleep. And then just settle. Let your shoulders drop down. Check in with your jaw. Make sure it's not tight. Feel the mattress underneath you holding your weight, and the covers over you. And let yourself be held by them, by softness. By the warmth of your sheets. And by the quiet darkness all around you. We're going to take two deep breaths together. It won't be any counting or anything complicated. And try and take that breath in through your nose. And when you exhale, breathe out through your mouth. And if you're ready, let's start. Breathe in slowly. Hold it for a second, and then let it out all the way to the very end, until there's nothing left. Good work. One more deep breath. Breathe in. And then hold. And then exhale. Beautiful. From here on in, there is nothing you need to do. But listen. Let my voice be the one thing that you follow. And let everything else go quiet around it. The room. The day. Whatever your mind has been turning over. We're going to use your imagination in a moment. And that's easier than it sounds. You don't have to picture anything perfectly. I'll describe something and some version of it will appear on its own. That's all imagining is. And if your mind drifts off at some point, it'll find its way back to my voice. When it's ready. Let's begin. Someone has invented something wonderful. A deep sleep pod. One of those pods you've seen in a hundred science fiction movies. The ones people climb into for the long voyage between stars. But this one wasn't built for travel. This one was built for exactly one purpose. Which is to take a tired person. And give them the deepest and most restorative sleep of their life. And it doesn't look anything like the ones in the movies. It's long and low and rounded. And the whole inside of it is deep and soft. The light inside is low and warm. The color of a lamp in a room at the end of the night. There is the faintest sound coming from somewhere underneath it. A low steady hum. It's open and waiting for you. Climb in and lie down and feel it take your weight. Feel the softness come up around your sides and hold you. And above you there is a long panel of soft lights. Glowing and reassuring. There's not much else to see. Nothing else to look at. Just the lights above you and the warmth underneath. And the quiet hum of something that was built to look after you. And now it begins its scan. Somewhere above your head a line of light blinks on. And it holds there for a moment while it finds you. It reads you from one end to the other. All in a second. And it knows everything now. The line of light comes down. A narrow band of it. No wider than your hand. Stretched across the whole width of the pod. And it's white. Not a hard white. But soft and slightly blue at the edges. It moves slowly. And you can feel it. It's faintly warm where it touches. Like standing in a patch of sun. And just at its leading edge there's the smallest tingle against your skin. A fine soft prickling. So slight. It crosses your forehead now and scans deeply. All that fast, bright, restless activity up there. The thinking that's been running since you woke this morning. The thoughts that keep circling back. Constilling the quick waves and drawing up along the slow ones underneath. The deep rolling rhythm that your brain only finds in the small hours of the night. The place it usually takes half the night to reach. And you're being taken there. In a minute, your forehead is smoothing under the light. The two small muscles between your eyebrows. The ones that pull together when you're worried. They're letting go. The light moves down over your eyes now. It's passing right over your closed eyelids. And you can see it. A pale glow crossing your vision. Left to right. Slowly. Your eyelids are getting heavier as it goes. And that ring of tiny muscles around each eye. The ones that have been squinting and focusing and adjusting 10,000 times today. Finally stops. Your eyes are sinking back. The grit and the dryness of the day. Washed out of them. Over your cheeks and into your jaw. The thick muscle just in front of your ear. Strongest muscle in your body for its size. The light soaks into it. Feel it letting go. And the light is doing something to your skin as it goes. Every small repair that a night's sleep makes. Happening at once. The tiredness lifting out of your face. The day being taken off you. It moves into your neck. Into those long ropes of muscle running up the back of it. The light works into them. And they're lengthening. Softening. One fiber at a time. The shoulders are dropping away and down. The trapezius releasing its grip across the top of your back. And now it reaches your heart. And it slows it. You can't do this yourself. You cannot. Ask your heart to slow down and have it obey you. But the pod can. Each beat. Coming a little later than the last. The gaps between them opening out. Settling down into that deep, slow rhythm. It only finds when you're fast asleep. Your blood pressure is dropping with it. And feel the warmth spreading out through your chest as the vessels open. And your blood moves easily. Everywhere it needs to go. You feel the skin moving down your arms. Through your biceps and triceps. Letting them soften and let go of their shape. It moves through your elbows. Along your forearms. And here it slows down. Because this is where so much of your day has collected. All those small muscles that work your fingers are up there. And the tendons that run down from them. Through the tunnel of your wrist and out into your hands. Gripping. Typing. Holding things. The light travels down the length of them. And everyone goes slack. Into your wrists. Loosening. Into your palms. And out along each finger. All the way. To the tips. And the tension is pushed out. And away. Your hands are lying open now. Curled slightly. Exactly the way hands lie when someone is asleep. Into your stomach. Where worry sits. Pulled in and held tight. The light sinks in. And it's loosening. And deeper than that. Everything in there that has been working since breakfast is being told. It can stop now. All of it slowing. Settling. Going quiet. And the light moves into your lower back. And wherever your own sore place is. The one that you've had for so long. The light finds it. And it stops there. It holds. And you can feel it going in deep. Warm. The heat spreading out through the joint. The ache. Dissolving from the inside. All the repair that a long night's sleep would have done in there. Is happening now. While the light rests on it. And then it moves on. And what it leaves behind is easy. And loose. And quiet. Down into your hips. The joints opening. Now down to your legs. Through the big muscles of your thighs. Through the knees. And every joint it crosses is flooded with warmth, down through your calves, unwinding all of the standing, and the walking, and the carrying, drained out of them, into your ankles, into your heels, into the soles of your feet, the long arch releasing all 26 small bones in your feet, spreading apart, and resting, and then the light reaches the ends of your toes, and it passes through, and it's gone. Your heart, slow, you're breathing deep, your mind, quiet, every muscle let go of, everything eased, and restored, and set right, the pod hums quietly around you, warm, holding you, nothing can reach you in here, and nothing is going to, nothing holding on anywhere, your body warm, and heavy, and loose, and still, this is what you feel like underneath everything you are carrying, and this is where sleep begins, not something you do, just this, a body with nothing left to hold, lying in the warm dark, letting go, just listening, and at some point, I'll stop talking tonight, and when I do, the music will keep going, it'll play for a long while, and then it will fade, you don't need to wait, when you hear my voice stop, music is all you need, even when that ends, you have everything you need, because you know now that sleep isn't something you have to know how to do, your body has done it every night of your life, and it did it long before you knew what it was, every creature with a nervous system sleeps, everything that can feel anything at all, has to stop and go under, every day, the body knows the way in, it's been finding it since before you could speak, the only thing that keeps it away is reaching for it, sleep won't be chased, wanting it, waiting for it, all of that keeps you just far enough from it to stay awake, but when you stop reaching, when you simply lie here and let this be pleasant, it comes on its own, not because you managed it, because you stopped trying to, so don't try, just enjoy this, that's all, lie here and enjoy being warm and being still and having nothing to do, nowhere to be, and no one who needs anything from you, and if a thought slips in while you're lying here, let it, it will, that's just what a mind does, makes thoughts the way a heart makes beats, whether you want it or not, and it can be slow to let go at the end of the day, so when a thought arrives, don't argue with it, and don't chase it out, just watch it, the way you'd watch a cloud moving across the landscape, it crosses and it goes, another one comes and that one crosses too, you don't have to do anything about any of them, they're only passing, and feel where your body is now, everything in you has slowed, your heart is beating so much slower, your breathing is deeper and further apart, your blood pressure has come down, your muscles have let go, and your whole body has dropped into the state it goes into at the deepest part of the night, this is the state your body repairs itself in, it's doing you good right now, whether sleep has arrived yet or not, and tomorrow doesn't exist, not yet, there's nothing of it here in this room, whatever it holds, it isn't holding it now, and nothing about it gets decided tonight, you can put it down, it will still be there in the morning and you can pick it up then in the daylight, because you will feel this tomorrow, your body will remember it, the slowed heart, loose muscles, quiet, you'll carry something of tonight into the day with you, that's a long way off, right now there is only this, the warmth and the weight of you and the dark and my voice and nothing at all to do.