Every night sit comfortably in a chair and rest your head back, like you do at the dentist. You can use a pillow. Then release your lower jaw. Just relax it so the mouth opens slightly, and start breathing from the mouth, not from the nose. Don’t change your breathing – let it be natural.

The first few breaths will be a little hectic. By and by your breathing will settle down and become very shallow. It will go in and out very slightly. Keep your mouth open, eyes closed, and rest.

Then start feeling that your legs are becoming loose, as if they are being taken away from you, cut loose from the joints. Then start thinking that you are just the upper part of your body; the legs are gone.

Then the hands – think that both the hands are not becoming loose and being taken away from you. You are no more your hands – they are dead, taken away.

Then start thinking about the head – that it is being taken away, that you are being beheaded. Leave it loose: wherever it turns, right, left, you cannot do anything. Just leave it loose; it has been taken away. Then you have just your torso. Feel that you are only this much – this chest, the belly, that’s all.

Do this for at least twenty minutes, just before you go to sleep. And do it for at least three weeks.