Holding your belly in? You can let it soften
Notice your belly, rising and falling with each breath. Let it be soft. There’s nothing to hold in. Twenty seconds from our guided meditation, for the habit most of us carry to bed without noticing.
Watch on YouTube · SleepBetter channel · Guided Meditations
Made with AI. Parts of this video are AI-generated (see “How this was made” below).
What it is
A cut from the breathing part of our guided sleep meditation for overthinking: the voice asks you to notice your belly rising and falling, let it be soft, and then take one more breath in and let it go. The picture moves from a moonlit, misty lake to a still lake at dusk.
How to use it for sleep
Play it lying on your back with one hand resting on your belly. Let the hand rise as you breathe in and fall as you breathe out, without pushing either way. After the voice ends, stay with three or four more breaths like that before you put the phone down. If you want the rest of the session, the full meditation goes on through a body scan and a slow count down.
Best for
People who hold tension in their stomach, shallow chest breathing at bedtime, and anyone new to body scans. For more of the same idea, try tense from head to toe?, the body scan Short or let your shoulders drop. This is a relaxation exercise, not medical advice; if sleep trouble keeps going, talk to a doctor.
Why the belly
Many of us hold our stomach in through the day out of habit, which tends to keep the breath high and short. Letting the belly soften gives the breath room to move lower and slower, and it is an easy place to rest your attention instead of on the day’s thoughts. Our breathing pacer is a simple way to keep the slow pace going.
Transcript
The narration, as spoken:
Notice your belly, rising and falling with each breath.
Let it be soft.
There’s nothing to hold in.
Once more.
Breathing in… and letting go.
How this was made
The voice is an AI-generated voice (ElevenLabs), cut from the narration of our guided sleep meditation for overthinking, reading an original SleepBetter script. The moonlit misty lake and the lake at dusk are AI-generated still images, slowly animated. Under the voice is a soft binaural tone made by SleepBetter; headphones are optional.
Keep watching
Video · 1 h 17 minGuided sleep meditation for overthinking: let the thoughts drift past
Breathing, a body scan and a lake under the stars, then a soft binaural bed.
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Video · 57 minutesDrifting off: a guided bedtime meditation for letting go of overthinking
Set the day down, write open loops into a notebook, drift across a lake.
SoundBinaural beats for sleep
A real hearing effect with mixed evidence. How they work and how to try them.
Free tool4-7-8 breathing exercise
A calm, on-screen pacer for 4-7-8, box breathing, cyclic sighing and slow breathing before bed.
Sleep videos and guided relaxation are for general wellness, not medical advice. If poor sleep is affecting your days, talk to a doctor or a sleep specialist.