Body Scan for Sleep

The practice

1. Lie on your back. Let your legs be long rather than straight — a small bend at the knees is fine, and a pillow under them helps if your lower back is sensitive.
2. Start with the breath for three or four cycles, without changing it. Just notice it.
3. Move attention to the left foot. Notice whatever is there: pressure, warmth, tingling, nothing. Any of these is fine.
4. Travel slowly upward — ankle, calf, knee, thigh — spending maybe 20 to 30 seconds on each region.
5. Continue through pelvis, abdomen, chest, shoulders, arms, hands, neck, face, and the top of the head.
6. When attention wanders, notice where it went, and return to the region you left. Wandering is not a failure; the return is the practice.

A full scan takes 10 to 20 minutes. A short version — feet, pelvis, belly, shoulders, jaw, face — takes about three.

Why it works

• It occupies working memory with neutral interoceptive content, leaving less capacity for planning and rumination.
• It is non-evaluative. You are not judging whether a body part is relaxed, only noticing what is there. No goal to fail.
• Attention and arousal are linked. Sustained attention on slow somatic content tends to be accompanied by reduced sympathetic activity.
• It interrupts the monitoring loop — the habit of checking "am I asleep yet?" that keeps insomniacs awake.

Adapting it

• If you cannot feel a region, imagine it instead. Imagined sensation works almost as well for the purpose of holding attention.
• If scanning makes you more aware of discomfort, shorten the dwell time and move faster, or switch to breathing.
• If you drift off immediately, you needed it; that is the outcome, not a problem.
• If it triggers anxiety, keep the eyes open in a dim room and anchor attention in external sensation — the weight of the blanket, the sound in the room.

Relationship to Feldenkrais

A body scan is attention moving through a stationary body. Feldenkrais lessons are attention moving through a body in very small motion. The second is often more effective for people who cannot settle by attention alone, because movement gives the nervous system new information rather than just new focus. If scanning leaves you restless, try the Feldenkrais bedtime routine.