It's late. The body is tired, the light is off — and the head won't switch off. The day keeps replaying, tomorrow keeps arriving early, and the harder you try to sleep, the more awake you get.
▶️ The full 16-minute routine, filmed on the coast of Tenerife. Press play and follow along — no experience or equipment needed.
Trying harder is the one thing that never works. What does help is giving the nervous system something slow and undemanding to follow. That is what these sixteen minutes are: gentle movement, a quiet self-massage, and one long, easy breath.
Moving in the evening won't cost you sleep
The old advice was to avoid movement after dinner. Research has since turned that around: light, gentle activity in the evening does not disturb your sleep. That matters here, because it means the hour before bed is available to you — not something to spend lying still, waiting.
What we do use is slower breathing, which measurably calms the nervous system. And people who practise Tai Chi or Qigong report better sleep quality on average — encouraging, though the evidence is still of modest quality. This is a routine that helps you wind down. It is not a treatment for insomnia, and it doesn't pretend to be.
How the sixteen minutes are built
It runs in three parts, each one quieter than the last:
- Standing, slow and easy — a cleansing breath, rocking, gentle Tai Chi waves, an unwinding turn of the spine, and Wise Owl Looks Back for the neck and shoulders. Nothing strenuous, nothing to learn by heart.
- Sitting, hands on the face — warm the palms, rest them on the eyes, then soften the face, the ears, the space between the eyebrows, the base of the skull and finally Shenmen at the wrist.
- Only the breath — nothing left to do but breathe.
The sitting half also works lying down. If you are already under the covers when you press play, start there: palms on the eyes, then the wrists.
Before you press play
Bare feet or flat shoes, and a space about the size of a mat. Keep everything smaller than you think you should — this is the one routine where less effort is the point. If a movement doesn't feel right tonight, leave it out.
This is general wellness content, not medical advice. If you sleep badly night after night, talk to your doctor; for chronic insomnia, the treatment with the strongest evidence behind it is CBT-I.
This routine is one of the free follow-along videos on my YouTube channel MindBodyInMotion — there's a new one every two weeks. New to Tai Chi? Start with the free 7-Day Tai Chi & Qigong Challenge.
