I struggled to sleep, but I found this 10-minute meditation helps me doze off quicker than ever

There’s nothing more frustrating than feeling exhausted all day and dreaming of your bed, only to finally get to the end of the day and find yourself tossing and turning. I’m all too familiar with this feeling and, often, it feels like nothing will help me doze off.

That was until I discovered a meditation practice from Charlie Faulkner, one of my favourite yoga instructors. It’s a 10-minute breathwork routine that I’ve been putting on after turning my lights off and following along with it while falling asleep.

So far, I haven’t made it to the end of the video before falling asleep and I’ve been sleeping more deeply too.

How to do Charlie Faulkner’s 10-minute breathwork practice

10 minute Breath work, Mindfulness, Meditation Practice to De-stress - YouTube

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Although I’ve been doing this meditation in bed, Faulkner says you can do it whenever you’re feeling stressed and in any position and it will help to “bring you to a place of calm”.

If you use it to help you fall asleep, take advantage of YouTube’s sleep timer function in the app to stop the next video from autoplaying. Tap the gear icon on the top right of the video, tap sleep timer, then select “End of video” from the list of options.

My experience trying Charlie Faulkner’s 10-minute breathwork practice before bed

The reason I decided to try Faulkner’s meditation is that during the savasana part of her in-person yoga sessions, I often feel deeply relaxed, and sometimes even fall asleep.

The breathwork in this video is very simple. It involves breathing through the nose in your own time. I struggle with breathwork that involves counting inhalations and exhalations. They can make me feel a bit anxious, especially if that count doesn’t come naturally to me.

Instead, I prefer to just focus on my breathing, as Faulkner advises in this video. This meditation also involves a body scan, focusing on each area of the body in turn and sending breath towards the body part you’re on.

Faulkner encourages you to imagine light radiating in that area of the body, which was an image I really enjoyed and visualizing this helped to distract my mind from negative thoughts.

Generally, I fall asleep within a few minutes of listening to this meditation and I’ve been doing it every night for over two weeks. I’d recommend it to anyone who struggles to switch off at night.