Julie Aelbrecht

Sleep and Meditation Teacher

A relaxing exercise to practice when you crawl into bed, to help you get to sleep. One of the elements that might prevent us from falling asleep, is the desire to sleep, which sometimes turns into a stressful thought. Being too focussed on sleeping can create all kinds of tension in the mind and in the body. So let's focus on relaxing our bodies and minds instead. This exercise takes inspiration from Yoga Nidra and encourages you to feel into your body, and let go of any tension that may be there. We will breathe slowly, relax our bodies and, hopefully, drift into sleep.

Relax your body and mind before bed with this Yoga Nidra inspired exercise to help you fall asleep without stress.

Yoga Nidra for Bedtime

We'll be taking a nap together in this exercise. First, we'll relax the body, and then, I'll tell you a story. You can let me chat in the background while you relax or sleep, or you can treat it as a guided visualization, where we leave our worries of the day behind. Although this is a nap exercise, you could also use it to relax and clear your mind before you go to bed. Curl up, cover-up, and enjoy.

Relax and nap with a guided visualization exercise that clears your mind and leaves your worries behind before sleeping or taking a nap.

A Transformative Nap

A short, effective practice to regain some calm and clarity at the moment. With gentle guidance, I'll invite you to become aware of your breathing, and then use the awareness of your breath to gain acceptance for your present moment. The practice contains no music and can be done anywhere, anytime, in any position. A great way to start or end your day or take a break right in the middle of it.

A quick breathing exercise to find peace and clarity anytime, anywhere, with no music, just gentle guidance.

Breathing For Calm And Clarity

When we go to bed with the express goal of falling asleep quickly, we can often get in our own way. Getting to relax the body and the mind before we drift off can be very useful. In this exercise, we will relax our bodies and then take some time to visualize ourselves at the beach. The body, the breath, and the visualization come together to get you to accept rest in your life.

Relaxing the body and visualizing a beach can help improve sleep quality by accepting rest into your life.

Sea Visualization For Sleep

Your breath is a powerful tool in meditation and mindfulness, in this exercise, we will use the breath to relax our minds and our bodies before going to sleep. Sleep is such a natural part of life on our beautiful planet, but sometimes, we struggle to fall asleep when the time comes. In times like these, we need a little help and a little guidance, to get us to let go of the day and drift off. Crawl into bed, enjoy and sleep tight!

Use your breath to relax your mind and body before sleep in this meditation exercise, to help you let go of the day and drift off into a peaceful slumber.

Breathing Before Bed

This meditation is focused on what surrounds us. This is traditionally known as a 'cosmic meditation', but I like to think of it as a zooming out-exercise. One that will put things in a different perspective, by bringing different things into our awareness. The exercise may not be so suitable for beginners, so I recommend you try a body scan or a breathing meditation before you jump right into this one. We'll start with a quote from the Sutras, an awareness of our breathing, and then we start to explore what else we can bring into our awareness.

A cosmic meditation that zooms out and offers a different perspective, focused on the surrounding environment, recommended for experienced meditators.

Cosmic Meditation

I made this short grounding exercise specifically for use in a chair. That makes it perfect to practice throughout the day, in moments of tension or high emotional arousal. You can practice this at your desk, during your lunch break, on the train or bus, or when you get home, to transition from the workday into your free time.

A chair-based grounding exercise to practice throughout the day, in moments of tension or high emotional arousal, ideal for transitioning from work to free time.

Grounding Relaxation On A Chair

A relaxation with affirmations for self-acceptance. We will begin by relaxing the body and the breath, finding a nice, safe space in your mind, and then repeating some affirmations for self-acceptance and self-love. This relaxation also exists in a shorter version to start your day with a boost.

Relaxation with affirmations for self-acceptance and self-love in a longer and shorter version to start your day with a boost.

Affirmations For Self Acceptance

A series of affirmations for self-acceptance and self-love for when you need a quick boost in the morning or throughout your day.

Affirmations for self-love and acceptance to boost your day!

Progressive muscle relaxation with options for movement either in a chair (sitting) or lying down. This relaxation will help you let go of tension in your body, an excellent addition to your sleep ritual or to transition between your working day and free time.

Relaxation technique using muscle relaxation with movement options to reduce tension and aid in sleep or transition from work to free time.

Muscle Relaxation For Chair Or Bed

A long, slow body scan to get ourselves ready for a deep, restful night's sleep. This exercise uses techniques based on the MBSR body scan and autogenic relaxation to relax your body and mind when you can't sleep.

MBSR-based body scan exercise promotes deep sleep by relaxing body and mind.

Body Scan for Deep Sleep

For everyone who wakes up from nightmares and is unable to get back to sleep, or cannot fall asleep for fear of having a nightmare. We'll relax the body, relax the mind, and replace the anxious images of your nightmare with a relaxed, peaceful place in nature.

Relax your mind and body, replace anxious images with peaceful nature scenes to combat nightmares and sleeplessness.

Letting Go Of Nightmares

We'll relax all the major muscles in our bodies without moving them. The exercise is progressive muscle relaxation, but without the tensing up part. Passive muscle relaxation will let your body chill out in the moment and make you realize that you can relax your body with your mind.

Passively relax all major muscles in your body using progressive muscle relaxation without tensing up, realizing you can relax with your mind.

Passive Muscle Relaxation

A gentle exercise on emotional awareness. After creating a safe space for ourselves, we will spend some time with several emotions, exploring the physicality and texture of the feelings within us. When we become more familiar with our emotions, instead of keeping them at a distance and dismissing them as good or bad, we come to a step closer to ourselves and to healing. The quote I share at the beginning of this recording is from Chögyam Trungpa: “We have to be brave enough to actually encounter our emotions, work with them in a real sense, feel their texture, the real quality of the emotions as they are. We would discover that emotion actually does not exist as it appears, but it contains much wisdom and open space.”

A gentle exercise on emotional awareness, exploring the physicality and texture of our feelings to come closer to ourselves and to healing.

Exploring Our Emotions

Even if we've practiced mindfulness and meditation for a while, it's possible our thoughts go into overdrive when bedtime comes. This mindfulness for bedtime exercise will help you transition between your waking and sleeping life and send you off on a good night's sleep.

Mindfulness for bedtime exercise helps transition into sleep and improve sleep quality for those with busy minds.

Bedtime Mindfulness

In this session, the technique we will employ is passive muscle relaxation. Although it has ‘passive’ in the name, we will still need to do a little bit of work to relax. I will explain; in the technique, we will relax different muscles in our bodies, but we will do it without movement. This is to show you that it is possible to will your body to relax. Your mind has the power to relax your body. I hope you can keep the immense and humbling power of your brain in mind, while you do this relaxation, but also for the rest of the day. Enjoy your nap

Learn passive muscle relaxation, a technique to will your body to relax without movement, and discover the immense power of your brain to relax.

Relaxing The Mind, Relaxing The Body

In this session, we will use our bodies to help us relax and move into a nap. We will practice a technique that is sometimes known as progressive muscle relaxation. We will tense and relax different parts of the body in conjunction with our breaths. This will not only relax our bodies but also enable our breathing to slow down. We know that a slower breath can help us move into a more relaxed state, and ultimately help us to get some sleep.

Learn to relax and enter into a nap through progressive muscle relaxation technique that involves tensing and relaxing different body parts while breathing.

Using Your Body To Prepare For A Nap

In this session, we will talk about the science of naps. I like to know how things work. I find that, if I know how my brain and body will respond to a certain thing, it works better for me. What makes a perfect nap? What timing should we choose? An hour or 15 minutes? Where should we nap? What happens to our brains and our bodies when we nap? How can it benefit us in the long and in the short run?

This session discusses the science of naps, including optimal timing, location, and benefits for the brain and body, in short and long-term.

The Science Of (Power)Naps

In today’s session, we will take a journey with our nap. Today is the day we can use our imaginations and find ourselves in a visualization of sorts. After a guided breathing exercise, I will guide you and invite you on a journey. We will visualize a walk through the forest. The natural imagery will help us relax and find some rest. Perhaps it can also inspire you to take a forest walk later.

Guided meditation session involves visualizing a forest walk for relaxation and inspiration.

A Nap In Nature

Maybe you have been practicing relaxation or meditation for a while, in which case you will know the power of breathwork. If you are new to these practices, I welcome you and I applaud you. Today, we will learn (or re-learn) how we can focus on our breathing to relax and take a nap together. The technique today is adapted from the beautiful tradition that is Japanese Zen meditation. I hope you enjoy the wisdom of this practice, and that your nap is restful.

Learn how to focus on your breathing with Japanese Zen meditation to relax and take a nap in this guided practice.

Using The Breath To Prepare For A Nap

This meditation will allow you to relax your body before drifting off to sleep. Rather than movement or muscle relaxation, we will simply allow different parts of our body to relax, and relax again. We'll begin by relaxing the right and left sides of the body, before moving on to the back and front body and the internal organs.

Relax your body for sleep by allowing different parts to relax and repeating the process, starting with the sides and moving to the front and back.

Relaxing The Body Before Sleep

The mind is like a river. In this meditation, we will use guided imagery to help you imagine your mind as a river and your thoughts as the water that runs through it. The mind, like a river, is never completely clear or completely still, it is ever-changing and ever-moving. With the help of this meditation, you can calm your mind and prepare for sleep.

Meditation uses river imagery to calm a never-still, ever-changing mind to prepare for sleep.

River Relaxation For Sleep

A lot of people who label themselves "stressed out", are nothing of the sort. They are just tired. Learn about how you may be confusing the two and why it is essential to look out for both stress and fatigue in your daily life.

Don't confuse stress with fatigue, many labeled "stressed" are simply tired. It's important to identify and manage both in your daily life.

Are You Stressed or Tired?

Sometimes, when our thoughts get the better of us, it seems impossible to meditate. In this case, we can still use affirmations to calm and center ourselves and remember that we are not our thoughts, we are observers.

When meditation seems impossible, use affirmations to calm and center yourself, remember you are not your thoughts, you are an observer.

Affirmations For A Chaotic Mind

Gratitude is a beautiful practice for any time of day, but practicing it right before bedtime, allows you to put your worries aside and instead fill you heart, body and mind with warm and fuzzy feelings. Get comfortable, relax your body, and fill yourself with gratitude tonight.

Practice gratitude before bedtime to ease worries and fill your heart and mind with warm feelings.

Fall Asleep With A Grateful Heart

You cannot pour from an empty cup, so let's fill your cup together in this guided nap. We'll first relax our bodies and then visualize ourselves in a lush, beautiful garden with a fountain. The water that runs through the fountain is there to refresh and renew you and fill your heart with gratitude. You can use this exercise as a guided nap or a sleep story, there is no cue to wake up at the end.

Guided nap to relax and visualize a lush garden with a refreshing fountain to renew and fill your heart with gratitude, no cue to wake up.

A Nap To Fill Your Cup

In these strange times, it can often be very difficult to focus on the good in our lives, to be grateful, and to place an emphasis on the positive. In this gratitude mediation, we'll practice gratitude both for the good and the bad in our lives.

Gratitude meditation teaches to be thankful for both good and bad in life to focus on positive amid difficult times.

Gratitude For Difficult Moments

A meditation for when you wake up in the middle of the night and can't seem to get back to sleep. If you're worried about tossing and turning at night, here is a guided relaxation for you to drift back off into your dreams.

Guided relaxation meditation to help you fall back asleep when waking up in the middle of the night, ensuring a peaceful transition into dreams.

Falling Back Asleep

Can you feel the stress in your shoulders, your neck, and your face? Do you need to relax quickly and let go of anxiety? Then this meditation is for you. In just 8 minutes, we will let go of stress and tension in the body with progressive muscle relaxation. Give this small gift to yourself.

8-minute meditation to relieve stress and tension in the body through progressive muscle relaxation - a gift of relaxation and anxiety relief for yourself.

Quick Muscle Relaxation

Mildness is the counterbalancing force for perfectionism. In this meditation, we give ourselves permission to be mild, to let go of the push for perfection. We allow ourselves to be.

This meditation encourages embracing mildness and letting go of perfectionism, giving ourselves permission to simply be.

Mildness Meditation

You’ve finished your evening ritual, you did your best to relax, and then it’s time to go to sleep. Many of us are a little anxious to go to bed because we are convinced we are bad sleepers and our worries overcome us when we lie in bed. In this lesson, we learn how we can fall asleep smoothly without staring at the ceiling for hours.

Learn how to overcome bedtime anxiety and fall asleep easily with tips to relax and stop worrying while lying in bed.

Falling Asleep And Worrying

Making time and space for sleep and rest in this hectic world is not simple. You’re going against the mass, the grain, and cultural norms that want us to speed up. In the final lesson of the course, we’ll examine how you can have compassion for yourself and others, who might not agree with your new ideas and lifestyle.

Creating time and space for sleep is challenging in a fast-paced world, but the course teaches self-compassion and understanding for others' differing views.

Rested In A Hectic World

Do you feel guilty when taking a nap? That’s not necessary at all. Naps are perfectly natural and an excellent addition to your nightly sleep. Learn how and when to take your best naps.

Napping is natural and beneficial for sleep, so don't feel guilty - learn how and when to take the best naps.

All About Naps

Now we’ve dealt with your sleep, it’s time to transform the morning. Stop snoozing, befriend your alarm clock and the first hour of the day, and wake up fresh! We’ll learn about the three essential parts of the perfect morning: light, nutrition, and movement.

Learn how to transform your mornings by embracing your alarm clock, prioritizing light, nutrition, and movement, and waking up refreshed.

Morning Glory

A talk about the advantages of a good night's sleep. Why do you need to sleep every night? How can sleep help us live our best life? Sleep enormously impacts our physical, emotional, and mental health. Sleeping well makes us more active, more productive, and kinder to one another. Learn all of this and more in this lesson on the science of sleep.

Discover the benefits of quality sleep for enhanced physical, emotional, and mental health leading to increased productivity, activity, and kindness.

Understanding The Value Of Sleep

Waking up in the middle of the night is a well-known problem. Whether you wake up to go to the bathroom or are awake in the night for other reasons, we’ll tackle it together in this lesson.

This lesson addresses the common issue of waking up in the middle of the night and offers solutions.

Waking Up At Night

What does it mean to be relaxed? In this lesson, we learn about tension in the body and the mind, and, crucially, how we can get ourselves out of a state of tension and stress, and towards relaxation.

This lesson explores the concept of relaxation, highlighting how to alleviate tension and stress in the body and mind to achieve a relaxed state.

Stress And Relaxation

In this lesson, we practice concentration meditation, in the Zen tradition. We can use our thoughts to relax by focusing on one thing at a time. In this way, we can become still.

Practice concentration meditation in the Zen tradition to relax and become still by focusing on one thing at a time.

Relaxing Zen Concentration Meditation

In this exercise, we will relax using our bodies with progressive muscle relaxation. We will tense and relax the major muscle groups in our bodies, one by one.

This exercise involves relaxing the body through progressive muscle relaxation by tensing and relaxing major muscle groups one by one.

Relaxing With Your Body

In this guided lesson, we’ll nap together, relax our bodies, and visualize a calm train ride through nature that brings us to a new moment in time.

This guided lesson focuses on relaxation techniques, including napping, body relaxation, and visualizing a calm train ride through nature.

Guided Nap - Trainride Through Nature

Sleeping poorly can not only affect your appetite and satiation but what you eat during the day can also help or disrupt your sleep. Learn about the hunger hormone, cortisol levels, and how to choose the best midnight snack.

The relationship between sleep and diet is a two-way street, impacting appetite, satiation, and the quality of sleep, influenced by cortisol and food choices.

The Link Between Food And Sleep

How does your body know when it’s time to go to bed? We talk about the magic of the biological clock, the daily rhythm in your body that regulates when you sleep, wake, eat, and are most active.

The body's biological clock regulates sleep, wakefulness, eating, and activity patterns, determining when it's time to go to bed.

Biorhythm And Routine

How long am I supposed to sleep? What is a sleep cycle? How do I regulate my evening, morning, and the rest of my day? This lesson answers all your questions about time and sleep.

This lesson provides answers to all your questions about sleep, including sleep duration, sleep cycles, and how to regulate your daily routine.

Timing Is Everything

Often, we focus on what our body isn't, or what it could or should be. We try to push and pull on our bodies, to make them fit a certain idea, often without realizing it. In this meditation, we’ll come into contact with the natural, automatic rhythm of your body and learn to trust it.

This meditation helps us embrace the natural rhythm of our bodies and develop trust in it, rather than trying to force it into a certain mold.

Feel The Rhythm Of Your Body

Perfectionism is the enemy of a good night’s rest. If you only allow yourself to sleep when everything is done, everything is perfect, what happens to your mind? To your body?

Perfectionism prevents good sleep by keeping the mind and body in constant stress with the need for everything to be perfect before resting.

Perfectionism Is The Enemy

In this bedtime meditation, we take a moment to become aware of the wonders of rest. We become mindful of the place that sleep and rest have in our lives and give ourselves permission to rest, to sleep, to give our bodies what they need.

This bedtime meditation reminds us to embrace rest and sleep, allowing our bodies to rejuvenate and acknowledging their importance in our lives.

Sleep Appreciation Meditation

In the last four weeks, you have transformed. You learned all kinds of new information, new skills, and new insights. So what now? How do you keep this up, how can you integrate this transformation into your daily life?

After undergoing a significant transformation, the challenge lies in maintaining and incorporating the acquired knowledge, skills, and insights into daily life.

A Lifetime Of Good Sleep

We often eat on automatic pilot, we eat as fast as we can, between two tasks. In this exercise, we’ll learn to eat mindfully, approach our food with all our senses, and learn to truly enjoy it.

Learn to eat mindfully, savoring each bite and appreciating the experience, instead of rushing through meals on autopilot.

Mindful Eating

In this exercise, we will use our breaths to come into a state of relaxation. An excellent starting point if you are new to breathing meditation, or would like a quick relaxation exercise for the middle of your day.

Learn how to relax using breathing meditation in a quick exercise suitable for beginners or as a midday relaxation technique.

Relaxing With Your Breath

We practice gratitude at the beginning of the day, gratitude for everything that will come towards you on this day.

Start each day with gratitude for everything that will come your way.

Start The Day With Gratitude

Walking is an excellent way to meditate. I learned this technique during my stay at a Buddhist monastery. Walking helps your body and your mind, it gives us a mental boost and works to help calm us. This walking meditation helps you on your way.

Walking meditation is a beneficial practice learned at a Buddhist monastery; it promotes physical and mental well-being, providing a mental boost and fostering calmness.

Walking Meditation

We’ll learn about the connection between movement, sports, working out, and sleep. Learn how and when to plan your workouts for optimal sleep.

This text explores the link between movement, sports, exercise, and sleep, offering guidance on when and how to plan workouts for better sleep.

Movement And Sleep

Humans have been fascinated with dreams ever since Ancient Greece. In this lesson, we’ll separate fact from fiction, and look at the hormonal and physiological realities of dreams and what they can tell us about the function of our nightly adventures.

This lesson explores the truth behind dreams and their physiological effects, shedding light on their function in our nightly experiences.

Dreams And Nightmares

You already know it, in the last 90 minutes before bed, you should put your screens aside. But why? And what can you do if you’re not “allowed” to watch television or scroll on your phone? You make a sleep ritual!

Creating a sleep ritual is recommended to replace screen time before bed and improve sleep quality in the last 90 minutes before sleeping.

Designing A Sleep Ritual

In this meditation, we'll explore nature as a metaphor for our current state, visualizing ourselves taking a walk on a natural beach.

Explore nature as a metaphor for our state, visualizing a walk on a beach in this concise meditation.

Visualising A Walk On The Beach

This evening, we’ll imagine ourselves in a quiet, pleasant rural setting and stargaze together. Come along on this relaxed trip into nature, to the stars and beyond. Get yourself ready for a good night's sleep.

Join us for a serene stargazing experience in the countryside, as we embark on a calming journey into nature and prepare for a peaceful slumber.

Fall Asleep With A Starry Sky

An exercise all about your body. Because most of what we do when we meditate or practice relaxation, goes on in our heads, you could start to think of relaxation as a purely mental process. Nevertheless, there are marked physiological aspects to relaxation. Not only do you feel physically more relaxed, your body also changes. Your heart rate drops, your breathing slows down and the tension in your muscles lessens. And if you know how your body feels when it's relaxed, there's a good chance you can bring yourself into a relaxed state more easily.

Relaxation is not just a mental process; it has marked physiological effects such as lowered heart rate, slowed breathing, and reduced muscle tension.

Bring Your Body Into Focus

Cette méditation te propose de commencer ta journée avec de bonnes vibes et de la reconnaissance. En plongeant dans l'instant présent du matin, prends le temps de respirer à fond, de lâcher le stress, et de te connecter avec tes intentions pour la journée. Guidé(e) par des affirmations positives, on va cultiver la gratitude pour ta journée, le soleil qui pointe le bout de son nez, les gens dans ta vie, ton corps, et ton esprit. C'est une méditation relaxante qui te donne l'espace pour apprécier les choses et te prépare à accueillir chaque expérience avec gratitude.

Médite le matin pour cultiver la gratitude et commencer la journée avec des vibes positives et de la relaxation.

Commencer Ta Journée Avec Gratitude

Esta meditación te invita a empezar el día con buenas energías y agradecimiento. Sumérgete en el momento presente de la mañana, tómate un momento para respirar profundamente, liberar el estrés y conectar con tus intenciones para el día. Guiado(a) por afirmaciones positivas, cultivarás la gratitud por tu día, el sol que amanece, las personas en tu vida, tu cuerpo y tu mente. Una meditación relajante que crea espacio para apreciar las cosas y te prepara para recibir cada experiencia con gratitud.

Meditación matutina para comenzar el día con energía positiva, agradecimiento y conexión con nuestras intenciones, guiada por afirmaciones.

Comienza El Día Con Gratitud

A body scan for the more practiced meditator, with longer periods of silence that will allow you to stay in your meditative state for longer, while still gently guiding you. The longest silent moment is three minutes, but we'll start off nice and gentle, gradually increasing the space for silent meditation throughout the practice. I hope you can enjoy and find some more depth in your practice.

This text highlights a body scan meditation practice for experienced meditators, gradually increasing silent moments to enhance the depth of meditation.

Low Guidance Body Scan Relaxation

In this nature meditation, we will use a deep, tranquil lake as a metaphor, to explore and release our feelings and thoughts in a safe, comfortable way. I'll invite you to remember or imagine a lake, and in this lake, explore the surface and the depths.

This nature meditation guides you to use a tranquil lake metaphor to safely explore and release your emotions and thoughts.

Release Emotions For Deep Sleep

Timothy Morton, once said: “When you’re meditating, you’re just allowing your mind to be what it is already, which is an object.” I think this is a beautiful idea, the mind as an object. It puts a little less pressure on us to do something or be something with and within our minds. Sometimes, however, it is not possible to drop into this mind-as-an-object space. When we're anxious, overwhelmed, stressed out when we've read the news against our better judgments. So what then? Then we can retreat into a different mind space. We can let this object that is our mind be a refuge, a place where angst and stress can co-exist with a feeling of peacefulness, a feeling of safety. In short, we can create a safe space for ourselves.

Creating a safe space within our minds allows us to find peace and refuge, especially when we are anxious or overwhelmed by external factors.

Creating A Safe Space

You might not remember sleeping as a baby, but your body does. In this meditation, we'll get in touch with the sensations of sleep itself, slow down our breathing, our heart rate, and our brainwaves and let our body rest. Fall asleep in no time and let your inner child rest and relax.

This meditation helps you reconnect with the sensations of sleep, allowing your body to slow down and find deep relaxation, like your inner child.

Sleep Like A Baby

Today, we'll start our day by finding balance and equanimity. Cultivating equanimity can help us stay grounded and centered on ourselves, even when the day doesn't go exactly as we planned.

Cultivating equanimity helps us stay grounded and centered, finding balance despite unexpected events in our day.

Start Your Day With Equanimity

Today, we'll start the day with an open awareness meditation. Together, we'll look for calm and grounding, so we can move through our days with awareness and alertness.

Start the day with open awareness meditation to find calm and grounding, promoting awareness and alertness throughout the day.

Start Your Day With Presence

We can all use a little more joy in our lives, but sometimes it's hard to know where to start or where to fit it in our days. So today, we'll start the day with exploring, feeling, and cultivating joy.

Learn how to incorporate joy into your daily routine by exploring, feeling, and cultivating it for a more fulfilling life.

Start Your Day With Joy

You are strong, you are capable, you are courageous and brilliant, but sometimes, you forget. So today, we'll start the day off with building some extra confidence, so you can tackle whatever comes your way!

Boost your confidence to tackle any challenge by reminding yourself of your strength, capability, courage, and brilliance

Tracks by Julie Aelbrecht