Back by Popular Demand · Six-Week Course
Sleep as
Sacred Practice
Ancient somatic wisdom & contemporary neuroscience for deep, restorative rest
Registration opens Winter 2027. Be among the first to know.
You are not broken. Your nervous system has learned a pattern — and a pattern, met with warmth and repetition, can be reshaped.
A different path to restorative sleep
Anxiety, worry, and the relentless pace of modern life rob many of us of sleep — and with it, our energy, clarity, and inner peace.
Drawing on ancient somatic wisdom traditions and illuminated by contemporary neuroscience, this course guides you to prepare body, mind, and spirit for truly restorative sleep — and to carry that peace into your waking life, your relationships, and your community.
This is above all an experiential course. From the very first session, you will be practicing. Each week builds progressively on the last, guiding you toward a stable, embodied daily practice that is yours to keep. No prior experience is needed.
Three Core Somatic Practices
Ancient techniques to use every night before sleep and throughout the day to release tension and invite healing.
Heart–Brain–Vagus Connection
How bringing peace to the heart signals safety to the brain, releasing hormones of healing throughout the whole organism.
Cellular Vitality
How consistent practice protects your telomeres — the markers of cellular aging — supporting longer health and vitality.
Anxiety Release
Noticing where anxiety lives in the body — and how to gently, skillfully release it through embodied somatic practice.
Community Healing
How your inner peace ripples outward into your family and community, contributing to collective well-being.
Neuroscience Context
Selected peer-reviewed findings on sleep, cardiovascular health, aging, and neuroplasticity as living context for practice.
Six weeks. 35 nights of practice.
With guidance for the seven nights that follow, and for the lifelong practice ahead.
Opening the Gateway
- What robs us of sleep: the nervous system under continuous stress
- First somatic practice: grounding and releasing the day, consciously crossing into rest — separating what needs to be released from what needs to be restored
- Your personal pre-sleep ritual begins tonight
- Brief science: the glymphatic system, the brain's nightly cleaning crew — and how a learned pattern of sleeplessness can just as easily be unlearned
The Body Knows
- Locating where anxiety, tension, and worry live in the body
- Second somatic practice: touch, self-massage, and release points — shifting from anxiety into safety
- The organs–emotions connection: bringing peace into the body so the brain can register it — and return it, deepened, to your whole being
- Brief science: heart rate variability, the vagus nerve, fascia, and the hormones of healing
The Heart of Practice
- Third somatic practice: the Sun and Moon breath, balancing the whole nervous system
- Weaving all three practices into one flowing nightly sequence
- Noticing what is already shifting — in sleep, in energy, in daily life
- Brief science: telomeres, cellular aging, and the power of consistent practice
We Are a Continuum
- Science and the ancient maps of our whole being
- The Three Centers Meditation — a practice that integrates every dimension of your being
- Everything you've practiced so far, gathered into one unbroken sequence: ground, heart, and the quiet witnessing that opens to insight
- Brief science: fascia, breath, and vagal tone act as one contemplative system, growing more flexible with practice
The Ocean of Dreams
- The four phases of sleep — and what each one is doing for body, mind, and spirit
- Meeting the 3am waking with curiosity: a new sequence of breaths, practiced without reaching for the clock, to settle the nervous system
- A gift for the journey ahead
- Brief science: REM sleep, memory consolidation, and the emotional processing that happens while you dream
Rippling Outward
- Reflecting on 35 nights: what has shifted in body, mind, and spirit
- How your own rest ripples outward — to family, to community, to the world
- Making this practice yours for life
- Brief science: sleep, longevity, and the resilience built by nightly repair
Begin your journey tonight
While you wait for the course — or to share with a friend — these free guided practices from Amelia's YouTube channel are yours to explore any time.
Cómo Volver a Dormir Cuando te Despiertas a la Noche
Effective ancient technique for returning to sleep when you wake in the night.
Watch on YouTube →The Power of Your Nervous System for Healthy Relationships
A dialogue with Dr. Stephen Porges on safety, healing, and the vagus nerve.
Watch on YouTube →Meditación y Auto-Aceptación
Easy techniques to learn to meditate and cultivate deep self-acceptance.
Watch on YouTube →Amelia has an amazing ability to weave together healing practices developed over thousands of years with scientific insights, while guiding us into connecting with our deep source of inner peace and of love for ourselves and for each other. Being in Amelia's presence and following her wise and kind guidance is deeply healing. Sue Carter, PhD · Internationally Renowned Scientist, Expert on Oxytocin
Dr. Amelia Barili
Amelia has guided thousands of students over many years through courses in Meditation, Positive Neuroplasticity, Volunteering, and Resetting Your Nervous System at OLLI and UC Berkeley. Her teaching weaves ancient wisdom with neuroscience in a warm, embodied, and accessible way.
An award-winning faculty member at UC Berkeley and the Polyvagal Institute, and recipient of the Chancellor's Award for Public Service, Amelia brings decades of experience in community healing, somatic education, and contemplative practice to everything she teaches.
Begin your 35 nights.
In 35 nights, you can transform your relationship with sleep — and with yourself.
Join the Mailing List →Registration opens Winter 2027. Be among the first to know.