Deep Relaxation for Sleep | 'Ocean Breathing' Guided Meditation and Full-body Deep Rest

This is a guided meditation using the breath and full body relaxation to help you get a good nights rest and wake up rested and refreshed.


During the video there will be 20 minutes of guided breathing and full-body relaxation then 25-30 minutes of ocean waves and music to help you naturally and easily drift to sleep.

0:00 Intro
0:17 Instructions
0:42 Guided Meditation

21:03 Music and Waves (no talking)

The practice we’ll be doing together is designed to help you encourage your body to enter 'Deep Sleep', by mimicking some of the breath and body states we experience in this state.

'Deep Sleep' is crucial for our wellbeing…


Did you know our brain gets a ‘wash’ while we sleep?!….


During 'Deep Sleep' cerebrospinal fluid floods our brain and removes accumulated toxins and amyloid proteins. This is one of the ways sleep relieves the mental fatigue that we feel when we’re badly slept.


During 'Deep Sleep' your body also gets to work fixing, restoring, renewing and regenerating cells and your body secretes human growth hormone, which is essential for keeping your organs and tissues healthy.


We sleep in cycles of Light Sleep (stage 1 and 2 ), Deep Sleep (stage 3) and Dreaming Sleep (stage 4 REM). It’s stage 3 'Deep Sleep' that’s most crucial for physical repair and it’s during 'Deep Sleep' – and only 'Deep Sleep' – our brain gets it’s crucial cerebrospinal fluid ‘wash’!


So how are we mimicking some of the breathing and body states we experience during 'Deep Sleep'?!?


The keys are:

1/ Belly Breathing stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which triggers repair hormones and systems in the body

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When we’re in 'Deep Sleep' our ribcage becomes more still as we transfer to belly breathing completely.


What if you find it difficult to breathe into your belly?!?


Don’t worry at all if you find it difficult to breathe deeply. Our lifestyle can get us into bad breathing habits and it can take a little time and practice to deepen the breath. If deep breathing is uncomfortable for you, don’t force or push the breath, just breathe as deep as feels comfortable and little by little the muscles involved will gain flexibility and strengthen.


You can try putting a hand just below your belly button and gently try to move your hand as you breathe.


The way we breathe has a dramatic effect on how we feel and function, so you might benefit from daily breathing meditations (you can find lots on the channel)





2/ Exaggerating the sound of the breath.


If you’ve ever acted or pretended to be asleep you’ll probably have made your breath louder! Our breath gets louder when we sleep because our throat, vocal chords and nasal passages relax completely.


Exaggerating the sound of the breath is a technique found in the yogic breathing practice ‘ujjayi’ breathing (pronounced oojaiyee)…sometimes called ocean breath, whispering breath or snoring breath.


It’s deeply soothing and has the effect of calming the nervous system.


During the meditation I’ll be guiding you to exaggerate the sound of the breath. If you have any trouble doing this imagine that you’re about to whisper. When we whisper our vocal chords naturally contract slightly and it creates and soothing whispering breath.



I hope you enjoy the meditation and if you’d like some more practices for sleep you might enjoy these….

Bone Deep Breathing Meditation: https://youtu.be/a1j2Uhzc08s
Meditation with Ocean Waves: https://youtu.be/22yn074Piz8
Perfect Sleep | Breathing Meditation: https://youtu.be/CE0f9xWnJAk


If you’d like just music and no talking here’s a sleep track with ocean waves…
https://youtu.be/K7O_dYkimoM

Thanks for listening.
Subscribe for more meditations and breathing practices.


Original vocal and music by Caroline McCready
Copyright 2021 – all rights reserved


For more info and resources visit: https://www.carolinemccready.com

Видео Deep Relaxation for Sleep | 'Ocean Breathing' Guided Meditation and Full-body Deep Rest канала Caroline McCready Meditation