Hey, welcome to Day Seven of this Seven Day Sleep Challenge. You know what that means? It's our final day. And I just want to say congratulations for making it through, for setting an intention and following through with that intention. There's a lot to be said for that. And I hope you can be proud of yourself for making it to this day.

And I also hope you feel like you have a new toolkit of different practices and strategies you can use to help transition into sleep, to fall back asleep, and to deepen your sleep. And we're not done yet. So in today's session, we're going to explore using sleep phrases to help calm your mind and transition into sleep. So what are sleep phrases? Well, you can think of these as affirmations or, similar to what we might do in a loving kindness meditation, where we recite phrases to ourselves, such as: may I be happy, may I be safe, may I be at ease. And the more we do this, the more we cultivate the qualities of loving kindness, compassion, and care.

So we're going to be doing something similar toward ourselves, but more with an orientation toward relaxation, feeling at ease and reminding ourselves that who we are is bigger and more spacious than the thoughts moving through our mind. And I'll share what those phrases are once we get to the meditation. But one thing I want to share beforehand is that there is a particular way to do self-talk that is more effective than others. The latest research is showing us now that it's better to talk to yourself in the third person, rather than the first person. So for instance, if we were trying to encourage ourselves, we might say, I can do this.

I can do this. But it turns out that really isn't that effective. It doesn't really land for us. However, if we switched that to, Cory, you can do this. You have the strength.

You have the resources. That tends to be much more effective because we're stepping into a coaching role in relationship to ourselves. And so you'll notice once we go into the meditation, that I'll be adjusting the phrases so that you're saying them from a third person perspective. If you were saying something like, may I be safe. You may instead shift that to, Cory, you are safe in this moment.

And of course, you wouldn't say Cory, you would say your own name. But I think you get the point. This will help us become our own best companion on our sleep journey, encouraging us and coaching us as we transition into sleep. It's been a joy to go on this journey with you, and I hope it doesn't end here. Remember, we have lots of sleep meditations and other meditations within the Mindfulness.com app.

So I do encourage you to check that out once this is over, so you can continue building on the foundation that you've already established. Thank you so much for your practice and commitment over these last seven days. And let's settle in for our final sleep meditation.