Mindful Cleaning for Sleep

Hi. I'm sorry, you can't sleep. So often when we can't sleep, we can become very caught up in our thinking. So a mindful exercise like this, well, it can really help to just move things on a bit. And best of all, even if you don't get back to sleep, you would have done some housework. So depending on what your situation is, whether there's other people asleep in the house. I would choose a task that you can do with gentle concentration. So ironing or folding laundry, wiping down the kitchen surfaces. Probably best not to do something that requires bright lights or makes a lot of noise, but just something that's gently soothing. And we'll take as long as you've decided to do the exercise for. Remember, we're not trying to make ourselves sleepy, we're just checking in with the body every now and again to see if that sleepy feeling has arisen. So no matter what activity, no matter what housework you're about to begin, the best way to start any exercise like this is just to take a nice, big deep breath, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. So it just helps to center the mind, to ground the body a little bit. So it makes it a little easier to then be present and focused with the activity. Now, of course, the idea of this is to bring the mind into the body, to be present with each sensation, sound, smell, movement, whatever it might be. So if we're washing the dishes, we feel the sensation of the hands in the water. We're conscious of the temperature. We're aware of the sounds. Crockery, cutlery, whatever it might be moving around in the sink. There's a conscious intention to see each and everything clearly. If we're ironing, we're aware of the body, the position of the body, the way we're holding the body, we're aware of the movement of the arm extending and coming back again. Noticing if there's any areas of tension in the body, noticing if we're doing it in a smooth and even way. So whatever it is that you're doing, notice the physical sensation, ensuring that you are approaching it in a steady and gentle way. Just a nice, steady flow. Noticing the sounds, the smell. And whenever you find that the mind is rushing off, either to something that has already happened or perhaps wanting to get past the task and back to bed, in those moments, letting go of any thinking and just bringing the attention back again to whatever you're doing at the time. It might be the feeling of laundry in your arm, again, it could be the feeling of the warm water in your hand. The point is to just come back to whatever you're doing in that moment. So just checking in with the body now. Has that feeling of sleepiness crept in? If it has, well, maybe it's time to...