Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 446: How to Use Meditation for Sleep | Bonus Meditation with Anushka Fernandopulle

Episode Date: May 6, 2022

This body scan meditation is designed to be simple and relaxing. It's the perfect bedtime companion for a good night's rest.About Anushka Fernandopulle:Anushka teaches meditation, works as an organizational consultant, and does leadership coaching with individuals and teams. She has practiced meditation for over 25 years, including four years in full-time intensive training in monasteries and retreat centers in the US, India and Sri Lanka.Her work is informed by a BA in anthropology/religion from Harvard University, an MBA from Yale focused on leadership and organizational behavior, and certification in coaching from the Coaches Training Institute.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Bedtime Body Scan,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=33b34fe4-6b04-43f6-b2cd-51a9bb83fce2.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What does it even mean to live a good life? Is it about happiness, purpose, love, health, or wealth? What really matters in the pursuit of a life well lived? These are the questions award-winning author, founder, and interviewer Jonathan Fields asks his guests on the Top Ranked Good Life Project podcast. Every week, Jonathan sits down with world renowned thinkers and doers, people like Glenn and Doyle, Adam Grant,

Young Pueblo, Jonathan Height, and hundreds more. Start listening right now. Look for the Good Life project on your favorite podcast app. This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey gang, happy Friday. It's bonus meditation time. If you've been listening to our episodes this week, you know that we've been focusing

on sleep. Why you probably aren't getting enough of it and how to do it better. One technique that both of our interviewees mentioned was meditation. So today, we've teed up one of our popular sleep meditations from the 10% happier app. It comes from Anishka Fernandipoli who has trained in Buddhist meditation for over 30 years and is not only a teacher, but also a leadership coach bringing Eastern practices to modern Western life. Here we go now with Anishka. Hi, this is Anishka. So in this practice, we'll do a quick body scan, just going through the body and relaxing. So you can lie down, lie yourself to be in a comfortable posture,

and you can feel yourself connected to the bed or the floor, the sofa, whatever surface you're on. You can gently close your eyes, and allow yourself to relax. We'll move through the body to relax in each part as we go. So first you can notice the face and the head. See if there's any tension that's there that you can relax. Sometimes it's helpful to do that on the out breath, breathing in and then as you breathe

out, just allow all of that tension around the jaw, around the eyes to relax. You can move on to the neck, shoulders, breathing in, as you breathe out, just allow the body to sink in. Relax any tension that's there. Get along the ground to hold us now. of the chest and the torso. Breathing in and as you exhale, it's allowing this part of the body to rest, relax. You can connect with the right arm and hand. Breathing in as you exhale, just allowing that hand to relax.

And the left arm in hand. Breathing in as you exhale, just allowing it to melt into the ground, the bed, the surface. You can shift to the lower body. Breathing in and as you exhale, relax any muscles that might be unnecessarily tense, can shift to the right leg in a foot, breathing in and as you breathe out, just allow the tension to release. And finally, the that all to relax. So I can just allow the body to be relaxed. You can let go of all effort and worry.

And just allow yourself to drift asleep. Have a good rest. Thank you again to Anushka. You may be asleep at this point, so what I'm about to say is potentially irrelevant, but if you're awake, we'll see you right back here on Monday for a brand new episode. In our month long mental health reboot series that we have launched to mark mental health awareness month, I guess we'll be Jonathan Van Ness from the Netflix show Queer Eye. And we're going to be talking about hope, which will be the subject of the entire week. And our view backed by science is that hope is a skill.

See you then. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with 1-3-plus in Apple podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey

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