Calming Anxiety | Guided Meditation, Sleep Hypnosis & Panic Attack Relief

World Mental Health Day — A 10-Minute Guided Meditation for When You Just Need Ten Minutes to Yourself

 

Today, 10 October, is World Mental Health Day. If you've spent the day holding yourself together, being fine, answering properly and getting on with it, this 10-minute guided meditation is the quiet ten minutes you've been needing. Nothing to prove, nothing to achieve. The time is yours.

 

Martin guides you through simple, gentle breathing for anxiety and stress: no counting and no breath holding, just noticing the breath you're already taking and letting the out-breath soften.

 Then come five calming affirmations for your mental health, including "I do not have to be fine to deserve looking after." Anchored, Martin's free-to-download app, is on iPhone

 (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669) and Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored).

 

Because your mental health deserves care every day, not just on World Mental Health Day. That includes the days you can't explain what's wrong, and the days you seem to be managing perfectly well while everything takes more effort than anyone can see. At the end, Martin shares openly why he made Calming Anxiety.

 

Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

 

* 00:00 – "I just needed ten minutes"

* 00:33 – Welcome: today is World Mental Health Day

* 01:05 – Getting comfortable

* 01:21 – Noticing the breath: no counting, no holding

* 02:08 – A gentle, longer out-breath

* 03:04 – A little quiet space that belongs to you

* 03:55 – A hand on your shoulder: we've got this

* 04:41 – Five gentle reminders

* 06:03 – Relaxing deeper, and the reminders once more

* 07:30 – Keep the one that fits

* 07:43 – Your mental health deserves care every day

* 08:12 – 3 daily caring tips

* 09:02 – Coming back into the room

* 09:28 – When you need more support

* 09:54 – Instant Calm in Anchored, free

* 10:51 – Why I do this

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

 

Repeat them quietly, or simply listen. If one doesn't fit today, let it pass.

 

* I am here, and being here is enough for now.

* I do not have to be fine to deserve looking after.

* I can take this moment at my own pace.

* I am allowed to look after my mental health.

* I do not have to earn that care.

* I can give myself a little space before my next step.

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

 

1. Notice one breath: Sometime today, pause and notice one comfortable breath. There is no need to change it.

 

2. Share as much as you choose: If someone asks you how you are, you can choose how much to share. A small, honest answer is enough if that is what feels right.

 

3. A hand on your chest: If it feels comforting, rest a hand on your chest for one easy breath, a small moment of kindness towards yourself.

 

If these quiet minutes help and you're finding the rest of your days difficult, please share it with a doctor or someone you trust. You deserve support beyond this session.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

 

If anxiety or panic sometimes catches you when you least expect it, download Anchored while you're feeling okay. The Instant Calm button on the main page is completely free, works offline and needs no signing up. World Mental Health Day, every day.

 

iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669

 

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored

 

If today's meditation helped, please share it with someone who might need ten quiet minutes, and leave a 30-second rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

 

Take care of yourself, my friend. And in everything, be kind.

 

 

Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins



Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety-guided-meditation-sleep-hypnosis-panic-attack-relief--4110266/support.

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.

The Sums That Came Right by E. Nesbit — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime

 

Drift off to sleep with The Sums That Came Right by E. Nesbit, a gentle and funny Edwardian fairy tale read aloud by Martin Hewlett on Books at Bedtime, the sleep story series from Calming Anxiety.

 

Edwin can't see the point of lessons. Seeds turn into flowers and dinner stops you being hungry, but sums never lead to anything. Then one afternoon, with his head inside his school desk, he finds the Arithmetic Fairy glowing at the back of it, in a dress woven of integral calculus and trimmed with logarithms.

 

From that day on, every sum Edwin gets right comes true at home. A sum about white rabbits leaves 7,563 of them in the front garden. Apples fill the cellar, oranges climb the stairs, and elephants arrive. Then a sum about a leaking cistern turns the staircase into Niagara, and Edwin has to find a way to call the fairy back and ask her to undo her gift.

 

What follows is a tender ending about growing up, about what learning gives us and what it can't, and about a rose garden and the Love Fairy.

 

This classic bedtime story for adults is perfect for winding down, easing insomnia and letting a busy mind settle into deep, restful sleep. Calm narration, gentle humour and a soft, unhurried pace make it an ideal sleep audiobook for anyone who finds it hard to switch off at night.

 

If you enjoy E. Nesbit, the author of The Railway Children and Five Children and It, you'll find more of her short stories on Books at Bedtime, including The White Cat, The Related Muff, The Aunt and Amabel, JustNowLand, The Magician's Heart and The Twopenny Spell.

 

The Sums That Came Right was first published in Oswald Bastable and Others (1905). E. Nesbit (1858–1924) and this story are in the public domain.

 

Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett.

 

📱 Listen to Books at Bedtime in the Anchored app, offline and with the screen off, so you can fall asleep without a bright phone in your hand:

 

iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669

 

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored

 

🧡 For Martin's calming tips, visit: https://calminganxiety.org/calm

 

Sleep well, my friend. And in everything, be kind.

 

 

Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins



Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety-guided-meditation-sleep-hypnosis-panic-attack-relief--4110266/support.

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.

Everyone Else Seems Further Ahead — Calm for Doomscrolling, Comparison & Social Media Anxiety | Vagus Nerve Breathing

 

Your thumb knows the way, doesn't it — down and down and down again. Nothing has happened to you. Nobody has said an unkind word. And yet your chest is tight, your jaw is set, and there's a low hum that says you're behind. This 10 minute guided meditation is for comparison anxiety and doomscrolling — because you've been comparing your whole self, the mess and the doubt and the 3am worries, to someone else's edited highlights. That was never a fair fight. Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett.

 

Today's breathwork is vagus nerve breathing, done with one hand resting flat and warm on the centre of your chest — because touch is part of the technique. In through the nose for four and feel your hand rise, then out softly through parted lips for seven. The long out breath and the gentle pressure together speak directly to the vagus nerve, and the message it carries back to the brain is simple: you are safe, you can stand down.

 

Comparison puts your body into a low-level threat state. A social threat, but a real one as far as your nervous system is concerned — and the breath is how we tell it the threat isn't there. Social media anxiety, phone anxiety, the feeling of falling behind, scrolling before bed: for the next 10 minutes, nothing is going to ask you for anything.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

 

* 00:00 – Your thumb knows the way

* 00:50 – Welcome, and an app with no feed in it

* 01:43 – Today's breath: vagus nerve breathing, with a hand on the chest

* 02:30 – Why comparison is a real threat to your nervous system

* 02:45 – Guided practice: in for four, out for seven

* 04:37 – The warmth under your palm — that's you

* 04:56 – An aura of light, flowing down

* 05:41 – Today's gentle affirmations

* 07:22 – A second pass through the words

* 08:31 – Your three daily caring tips

* 09:17 – A gentle return and a stretch

* 09:41 – Anchored, sharing this episode, and be kind

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

 

Visualise these words, repeat them, and feel them.

 

* My life is not a competition.

* I am not behind. I am simply on my own path, at my own pace.

* What I see on a screen is a moment. It is not a life.

* I release the anxiety that comes from comparing myself to others.

* Enough is not a number. Enough is a feeling, and I choose it right now.

* Comparison is a cloud that passes through me. It is not who I am.

* I am calm. I am content. I am here, in my own life.

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

 

1. Unfollow what makes you smaller — Mute or unfollow three accounts today that leave you feeling smaller than before you opened them.

2. Phone out of the bedroom — Keep your phone out of the bedroom tonight, and use a proper alarm clock instead.

3. Ask what you came for — Before you unlock your phone, take one long slow out breath and ask yourself what you actually came for.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

 

If you'd like somewhere to go that doesn't want your attention — no feed, no red dots, no notifications shouting, no algorithm deciding what you need today — download Anchored on iOS. Access over 3,000 searchable, offline-ready audio sessions, sleep stories with Books at Bedtime, and built-in nightlight features for the small hours. You decide, then you close it, and then you get on with your day. 👉 Download Anchored on the App Store Today: https://apps.apple.com

 

And if this one landed with you, please share it with someone whose thumb has been busy lately. Chances are they've been feeling behind too, and haven't said so. If you have 30 seconds, a rating or review on Apple Podcasts helps someone else find us today.

 

Your life is not happening on a screen. It's happening right now, right here. So in everything — every thought, word and action — be kind.

 

 

👉 Click to subscribe and unlock ad-free episodes now!

 

Support the Show:

 

Ad-Free Listening: Enjoy Calming Anxiety without ads at https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety--4110266/support

 

Buy Me a Coffee: Support hosting costs at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/calminganxiety

 

Newsletter: Subscribe on Substack at https://calminganxietypodcast.substack.com/?r=6zm0sc&utm_campaign=pub-share-checklist

 

Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.

The Twopenny Spell by E. Nesbit — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime

 

Drift off to sleep with this gentle bedtime story, a classic audiobook narrated aloud for insomnia relief and deep relaxation as part of Calming Anxiety's Books at Bedtime series. Tonight's sleep story is The Twopenny Spell by E. Nesbit, the much-loved author of The Railway Children. It's a funny, warm-hearted tale of a brother, a sister and one very poorly chosen magic spell. It was written in the early 1900s and is long in the public domain: Edith Nesbit (1858–1924) died more than a century ago.

 

For more calming audiobooks and sleep stories whenever you need them, download Anchored, the free companion app to Calming Anxiety, with offline-ready relaxation and Books at Bedtime sessions for any hour of the night.

Get it on the App Store at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669 or on Google Play at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored.

 

In this soothing narrated short story, gentle, well-behaved Lucy has had enough of her brother Harry, especially after he buries her up to her waist among the gooseberry bushes. With twopence from Uncle Richard in her pocket, she finds a shop she has never noticed before: a flower-filled parlour belonging to Mr. Deloro Delara, Professor of White and Black Magic. The best spell twopence can buy will make her as strong as Harry, and Harry as weak as her. But by the next morning, nothing in their corner of Victorian Blackheath is quite the way it should be.

 

Witty, wise and full of Nesbit's sharp eye for how children really behave, this is a story about fairness, sibling squabbles and the one thing no spell can survive: a kiss and a heartfelt sorry.

 

If you can't sleep, lie awake at night with a racing mind, or simply love classic children's literature read aloud, let this calm, unhurried bedtime reading ease anxiety and carry you softly towards rest.

 

Hosted and narrated by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett, as part of Calming Anxiety's Coffee Break for the Soul and Books at Bedtime story readings.

 

And in everything, my friend, be kind.

 

 

Support the Show:

 

Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins



Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety-guided-meditation-sleep-hypnosis-panic-attack-relief--4110266/support.

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.

Anxious at Work and Telling Everyone You're Fine — Calm for Workplace Anxiety, Pressure & Deadlines | Physiological Sigh

 

Anxious at work and telling everyone you're fine? This 10 minute guided meditation is for workplace anxiety — the particular kind of tired that has nothing to do with sleep. The tired of holding yourself together from the moment you reach for your phone to the moment you close the laptop and realise your shoulders have been up around your ears for nine hours, and nobody at work saw a thing. Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett.

 

Today's breathwork is the physiological sigh, chosen deliberately because of all the breathing techniques taught on this show, this is the one you can use at work without a single person noticing. No counting to sixteen. No sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the printer. Two breaths in through the nose, one long slow breath out through the mouth — and your heart rate settles. That is not your imagination, that's your vagus nerve doing precisely the job it was built for.

 

Work stress, deadline pressure, the inbox that never empties, replaying the thing you said in the meeting, the anxiety of being perfect — for the next ten minutes you have nothing to achieve and nothing to fix. You don't need a cushion or a candle or a quiet room. If you're still sitting at your desk, that's perfectly all right. You just need your breath.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

 

* 00:00 – The tired that has nothing to do with sleep

* 01:14 – Welcome — ten minutes with nothing to achieve

* 02:12 – Today's breath: the physiological sigh, and why it works at your desk

* 02:43 – Guided practice: double breath in, long breath out

* 04:39 – Your vagus nerve, doing the job it was built for

* 05:14 – When the day comes wandering back in

* 05:44 – Today's gentle affirmations

* 07:14 – Deeper relaxation and the pause between breaths

* 08:07 – Your three daily caring tips

* 08:58 – A gentle return and a stretch

* 09:37 – Anchored, sharing this episode, and be kind

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

 

Visualise these words in your thoughts, and whisper them in your mind.

 

* I am calm at work, even when the work is not calm.

* My work anxiety is a feeling. It is not a fact.

* I can breathe through stress at work, and my nervous system knows how.

* I do not have to be perfect to be good at what I do.

* I am allowed to work at a human pace.

* My worth is not my output.

* I am safe. I am here. There is nothing to fear right now.

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

 

1. One sigh before the first meeting — Before the first meeting today, take one single physiological sigh at your desk. Nobody will see it, and your nervous system will thank you for it.

2. Set one boundary you can keep — Set one boundary that you can actually keep, such as no email for the first twenty minutes after you wake up.

3. Leave the screen at lunch — Make a proper break away from your screen at lunchtime, even if it's only ten minutes standing outside in the air.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

 

If today helped, come and find all of these sessions — over 3,000 of them — inside Anchored. Download Anchored on iOS. Access over 3,000 searchable, offline-ready audio sessions, sleep stories with Books at Bedtime, and built-in nightlight features for the small hours. Do the check-in tonight; it takes thirty seconds, and in a fortnight you'll know your own pattern better than any app ever could. 👉 Download Anchored on the App Store Today: https://apps.apple.com

 

And if you know someone who is holding it all together at work and telling everybody they're fine, please send them this episode. That's how this show has reached over 10 million downloads — no advertising, no huge corporation or budget, just people like you quietly passing it on. If you have 30 seconds, a rating or review on Apple Podcasts helps someone else find us today.

 

You did that. Not me. Look after yourself today, and in everything, in every thought, word and deed — be kind.

 

 

👉 Click to subscribe and unlock ad-free episodes now!

 

Support the Show:

 

Ad-Free Listening: Enjoy Calming Anxiety without ads at https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety--4110266/support

 

Buy Me a Coffee: Support hosting costs at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/calminganxiety

 

Newsletter: Subscribe on Substack at https://calminganxietypodcast.substack.com/?r=6zm0sc&utm_campaign=pub-share-checklist

 

Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.

The Magician's Heart by E. Nesbit — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime

 

Drift off to sleep with this gentle bedtime story, a classic audiobook narrated aloud for insomnia relief and deep relaxation as part of Calming Anxiety's Books at Bedtime series. Tonight's sleep story is The Magician's Heart by E. Nesbit, the much-loved author of The Railway Children. It's a witty, warm-hearted fairy tale of christening curses, a magic kiss saved for twenty years, and a wicked magician who was once the dearest little boy in a plaid frock. It's the final story in her 1912 collection The Magic World and is long in the public domain: Edith Nesbit (1858–1924) died more than a century ago.

 

For more calming audiobooks and sleep stories whenever you need them, download Anchored, the free companion app to Calming Anxiety, with offline-ready relaxation and Books at Bedtime sessions for any hour of the night. Get it on the App Store at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669 or on Google Play at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored.

 

In this soothing narrated short story, a wicked magician who is never invited to royal christenings decides to go anyway. At one he curses little Prince Fortunatus to be the stupidest prince in the world. At the next he makes baby Princess Aura the ugliest princess in the world. But a white witch catches him before he can vanish, and gives the princess a kiss to keep until she needs it. Twenty years later, a disguised princess, a lost prince now working as a baker's boy, and the magician's devoted old nurse all arrive at his tower on the very same morning.

 

Funny, tender and full of Nesbit's sparkle, this is a story about kindness, second chances and the magic of a well-kept kiss. It ends, as all the best fairy tales should, with love, a wedding and a shower of white roses.

 

If you can't sleep, lie awake at night with a racing mind, or simply love classic children's literature read aloud, let this calm, unhurried bedtime reading ease anxiety and carry you softly towards rest.

 

Hosted and narrated by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett, as part of Calming Anxiety's Coffee Break for the Soul and Books at Bedtime story readings.

 

And in everything, my friend, be kind.

 

 

Support the Show:

 

Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins



Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety-guided-meditation-sleep-hypnosis-panic-attack-relief--4110266/support.

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.

What If Thoughts Won't Stop — Calm for Waiting, Uncertainty & Anticipatory Anxiety | Humming Bee Breath

 

What if thoughts won't stop when you are waiting on news, waiting on a decision, waiting on a door you cannot see behind. This 10 minute guided meditation is for anticipatory anxiety — the exhausting habit of rehearsing a problem that has not happened yet. Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett.

 

Today's breathwork is the Humming Bee Breath, known in yoga as Bhramari. Humming does two things at once: it makes your out breath long and even without you counting anything, and the vibration travels up through the soft palate, throat and the bones of the skull, along the path of the vagus nerve. It is a signal your nervous system finds very difficult to argue with — because you cannot hum and brace at the same time. In through the nose for four, then a low soft hum all the way out for eight.

 

You do not need to see the whole road. On a long drive at night your headlights show you twenty metres of it, and you arrive every single time. Uncertainty, worry about the future, "what if" thinking, panic and overthinking — we are not going to solve any of it today. We are going to sit down beside it and find out that you can breathe here after all.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

 

* 00:00 – The problem that hasn't happened yet

* 01:06 – Welcome, and how to settle for this one

* 01:57 – Today's breath: Humming Bee Breath (Bhramari) and the vagus nerve

* 02:58 – Guided practice: in for four, hum out for eight

* 05:28 – The silence the humming leaves behind

* 05:50 – Today's gentle affirmations

* 07:26 – Setting the heavy bag down

* 07:57 – Your three daily caring tips

* 08:45 – A gentle return and a stretch

* 09:24 – Anchored, sharing this episode, and be kind

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

 

Words to carry with you through the day — the words that entwine themselves into the fabric of your soul.

 

* I can live with uncertainty, and I am doing it right now.

* My anxiety about the future is not a prediction.

* What if thoughts pass through me — they are not me.

* I do not need to know what happens next in order to be all right today.

* I only need to see the next 20 metres of the road in front.

* I release what I cannot control, and the weight leaves my shoulders.

* I have coped with things I once dreaded, and I coped better than I imagined.

* I am safe. I am here. There is nothing to fear right now.

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

 

1. Name it out loud — When a "what if" thought arrives today, name it out loud. Say "that is a what if", and let it carry on past you.

2. Do the one part you can influence — Write down the one part of this situation you can actually influence, and do only that today.

3. Give your worry an appointment — Give your worry a 10 minute appointment this evening, and when it turns up early, tell it kindly that it has a time.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

 

If this one helped you, put Anchored on your home screen tonight — so that tomorrow, when the what ifs start, it's one tap away and not a surge. Download Anchored on iOS. Access over 3,000 searchable, offline-ready audio sessions, sleep stories with Books at Bedtime, and built-in nightlight features for the small hours. 👉 Download Anchored on the App Store Today: https://apps.apple.com

 

And if there's someone you know who is waiting on news, or standing in front of a door they cannot see behind, please send them this episode. That's how this show found 10 million downloads — not advertising, just people quietly passing it on. If you have 30 seconds, a rating or review on Apple Podcasts helps someone else find us tonight.

 

You don't have to see the whole road. So in everything, in every thought, word and deed — be kind.

 

 

👉 Click to subscribe and unlock ad-free episodes now!

 

Support the Show:

 

Ad-Free Listening: Enjoy Calming Anxiety without ads at https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety--4110266/support

 

Buy Me a Coffee: Support hosting costs at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/calminganxiety

 

Newsletter: Subscribe on Substack at https://calminganxietypodcast.substack.com/?r=6zm0sc&utm_campaign=pub-share-checklist

 

Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.

Justnowland by E. Nesbit — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime

 

Drift off to sleep with this gentle bedtime story, a classic audiobook narrated aloud for insomnia relief and deep relaxation as part of Calming Anxiety's Books at Bedtime series. Tonight's sleep story is Justnowland by E. Nesbit, the much-loved author of The Railway Children. It's a tender fairy tale about a lonely little girl, an enchanted kingdom of crows, and a dragon who has never once been treated kindly. It was first published in her 1912 collection The Magic World and is long in the public domain: Edith Nesbit (1858–1924) died more than a century ago.

 

For more calming audiobooks and sleep stories whenever you need them, download Anchored, the free companion app to Calming Anxiety, with offline-ready relaxation and Books at Bedtime sessions for any hour of the night.

Get it on the App Store at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669 or on Google Play at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored.

 

In this soothing narrated short story, eight-year-old Elsie has been locked in a bare attic by the stern Mrs. Staines, all for weeding up the turnips by mistake. Her father is far away in India, and there isn't so much as a piece of string to play with. Then a talking crow appears in the fireplace. He's really a Prime Minister under an enchantment, and he carries her away to a beautiful city where a whole kingdom needs her help. The only thing that can save them is someone brave enough to tame the dragon in the people's park.

 

Tender, magical and full of Nesbit's warmth, this is a story about loneliness, courage and the extraordinary power of simple kindness, with a homecoming at the end that will leave you smiling.

 

If you can't sleep, lie awake at night with a racing mind, or simply love classic children's literature read aloud, let this calm, unhurried bedtime reading ease anxiety and carry you softly towards rest.

 

Hosted and narrated by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett, as part of Calming Anxiety's Coffee Break for the Soul and Books at Bedtime story readings.

 

And in everything, my friend, be kind.

 

 

Support the Show:

 

Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins



Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety-guided-meditation-sleep-hypnosis-panic-attack-relief--4110266/support.

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.

Racing Thoughts at Night — How to Quiet an Overthinking Mind | Alternate Nostril Breathing

 

Racing thoughts at night are exhausting. There's a room in your mind and the light is still on — somebody in there is still talking, turning the same thought over and over, looking for a door in a wall that hasn't got one. Nobody chooses a racing mind. It isn't your fault. It's a nervous system asked to stay alert for too long that has forgotten how to stand down.

 

In this 10-minute guided meditation we don't argue with the thoughts and we don't try to win — we slow the traffic down until the noise becomes distant. Today's technique is alternate nostril breathing, Nadi Shodhana, which works so well for an overthinking mind because it gives that mind a small job to hold: which hand, which finger, which side, which count. An overthinking mind doesn't stop because you ask it to. It stops when you give it something simple to hold.

 

Two full rounds, with the exhale always longer than the inhale — the long exhale is the brake pedal of the nervous system. Then gentle affirmations for a racing mind, and three practical caring tips for the nights the thoughts gather speed. Anxiety relief, overthinking, rumination, or simply a quieter mind before sleep — there is nothing you need to fix, solve or decide for the next ten minutes.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

* 00:00 – The room in your mind with the light still on

* 00:41 – We're not going to argue with the thoughts

* 00:55 – Today's focus: racing thoughts and an overthinking mind

* 01:04 – Welcome + Anchored: use the time you've actually got

* 01:47 – Settling in: shoulders, jaw, eyes closed

* 02:08 – Alternate nostril breathing (Nadi Shodhana)

* 02:26 – Why it works on an overthinking mind

* 02:49 – The hand position: thumb, ring finger, light touch

* 03:25 – Round one: in left, hold, out right

* 04:15 – The long exhale: the brake pedal of the nervous system

* 04:33 – Round two: letting the count carry you

* 05:18 – Thoughts overheard from the next room

* 05:35 – Today's gentle affirmations

* 07:17 – Affirmations, second pass

* 08:11 – Your three daily caring tips

* 09:12 – Coming back into the room

* 09:36 – Outro: Anchored, share, and be kind

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

See these words brightly in your mind's eye, then repeat them.

* I am calming my racing thoughts.

* My mind is allowed to be quiet.

* I am not my overthinking — I am the one who notices it.

* I am the sky. My thoughts are only the clouds.

* I do not have to solve anything right now.

* My anxious mind is slowing.

* I am safe. I am here. There is nothing to fear right now.

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

1. Write the loop down. When a thought loops for the third time, write it on paper. Your mind repeats things mainly because it's afraid you'll forget them.

2. Worry on purpose, earlier. Set aside ten minutes earlier in the day to deliberately worry, so your mind learns the night is not the appointed time.

3. Breathe before the phone. Tonight, when the racing starts, do one round of alternate nostril breathing before you reach for your phone.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett. Come and find all of this in Anchored — the app I built just for these moments. Set it to three minutes or twenty, whatever the day allows. Over 3,000 searchable, offline-ready sessions, sleep stories with Books at Bedtime, and a soft nightlight for the small hours. 👉 [Download Anchored on the App Store Today](https://apps.apple.com)

 

If you have a friend, family member or colleague whose mind won't switch off in the night, please share this episode with them. It costs you nothing and it might change their whole night. A 30-second review on Apple Podcasts does the same for someone you'll never meet.

 

You didn't fight your mind today. You slowed it. And that is a far, far more effective thing. Be gentle with yourself — you are doing so much better than you think. So in everything…

 

…be kind.

 

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.

The Aunt and Amabel by E. Nesbit — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime

 

Drift off to sleep with this gentle bedtime story, a classic audiobook narrated aloud for insomnia relief and deep relaxation as part of Calming Anxiety's Books at Bedtime series. Tonight's sleep story is The Aunt and Amabel by E. Nesbit, the much-loved author of The Railway Children. It's a magical tale of a little girl, a wardrobe in the best bedroom, and a secret railway to a beautiful city, and it's often cited as one of the inspirations for C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It was first published in 1908 and collected in The Magic World (1912), and is long in the public domain: Edith Nesbit (1858–1924) died more than a century ago.

 

For more calming audiobooks and sleep stories whenever you need them, download Anchored, the free companion app to Calming Anxiety, with offline-ready relaxation and Books at Bedtime sessions for any hour of the night.

Get it on the App Store at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669 or on Google Play at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored.

 

In this soothing narrated short story, eight-year-old Amabel only meant to please her great-aunt. But when she snips every flower from the greenhouse to fill a bare flower bed, she finds herself in disgrace, shut away all day in the gloomy best bedroom. There's nothing to read but a red velvet railway timetable. Then she spots a most unusual station: "Big Wardrobe in Spare Room". The destination? A shining crystal city called Where You Want To Go To.

 

Tender, funny and quietly wise, this is a story about feeling misunderstood, saying sorry, and the people who understand. It's perfect for anyone who has ever felt in disgrace and wished someone could see they meant well.

 

If you can't sleep, lie awake at night with a racing mind, or simply love classic children's literature read aloud, let this calm, unhurried bedtime reading ease anxiety and carry you softly towards rest.

 

Hosted and narrated by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett, as part of Calming Anxiety's Coffee Break for the Soul and Books at Bedtime story readings.

 

And in everything, my friend, be kind.

 

 

Support the Show:

 

Rate & Review: Leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help us reach more listeners!

 

YouTube: Watch all episodes at https://www.youtube.com/c/calminganxiety?sub_confirmation=1

 

Social Media Support: For younger listeners struggling with social media stress, visit https://www.icanhelp.net/

 

Music: All music by Chris Collins



Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety-guided-meditation-sleep-hypnosis-panic-attack-relief--4110266/support.

Ready for More Calm?Thank you for listening to the Calming Anxiety Podcast, featuring guided meditation, mindfulness, and sleep hypnosis sessions with Martin Hewlett. Our mission is to provide you with proven tools for anxiety relief, stress reduction, and a path toward deep relaxation. Use this episode anytime you need to calm your mind and feel more at ease.