We can be walking around in chronic sympathetic nervous system response (fight or flight) sometimes without knowing we are. In this anxious state, key signals occur in the body - shallow, quick breath, racing heart, tight jaw, and many other symptoms. Practice this exercise whenever you need to. It calms the body-mind and encourages a parasympathetic response (rest, digest, and relax mode). Learn to be aware of how your body responds to daily stressors, and what you can do about it.

Learn to recognize and manage symptoms of chronic sympathetic nervous system response through breathing exercises for a calmer and relaxed state.

Calm Chronic Fight Or Flight Response

Breath is the fastest way to affect physical and mental changes. In this meditation, we practice lengthening our exhalations to calm and regulate our nervous system from the fight or flight to the rest and digest mode. We can also use our exhalations to release anything that no longer serves us.

Lengthen your exhalations in meditation to regulate your nervous system and release negativity. Breath is a powerful tool for physical and mental change.

Letting Go With The Breath

A mindful pause - use the breath and the words "here and now" to help you center into the present moment with compassion and ease.

Center yourself in the present moment with compassion and ease by using a mindful pause with the breath and the words "here and now".

Breathe in Here, Breathe Out Now

In this exercise we practice lengthening the breath, deepening the breath, and using longer exhales to engage the parasympathetic nervous system - the rest and digest mode.

Practice longer breaths and exhales to activate the rest and digest mode of the parasympathetic nervous system.

Lengthening the Breath for Relaxation

We all have a reset button that we can push anytime we need to redirect our emotional state. It's a superpower that we all have used, and that superpower is the power of taking one deep breath.

We can reset our emotional state by taking one deep breath, a superpower that we all possess.

The Reset Breath: Transform Each Moment

Use your breath and the added focus of counting to yourself, to redirect your mind away from restlessness and thoughts that just won't turn off when you are trying to settle down to a good night's sleep. This is an instructional guide that you can continue to practice after the track finishes - It's an effective and revised version of counting sheep.

Count your breaths to calm your mind and get a good night's sleep - an effective and revised version of counting sheep.

Counting Down To Sleep

Full-body breathing allows us to embody our physical space and anchor ourselves in the moment while cultivating deep peace, awareness, and relaxation. photo Lucas Van Oort- Unsplash

Full-body breathing cultivates deep peace, awareness, and relaxation by allowing us to embody our physical space and anchor ourselves in the moment.

Full Body Breathing

For those of us who spend too much time in our heads and not in our bodies. A short but effective practice is to "Drop-In" using your breath as a vehicle.

"Drop-In" using breath to connect mind and body for those who overthink.

Dropping Into The Body

Breath of Joy is the perfect exercise to reinvigorate and energize yourself, whether as a part of your morning ritual or anytime you need a little pick-me-up, both physically, energetically, and emotionally. Enjoy!

Breath of Joy exercise revitalizes and energizes you physically, energetically, and emotionally, perfect for morning rituals or pick-me-up moments.

Breath Of Joy

A simple and effective breathing exercise also known in pranayama as Nadi Shodhana. Gentle and safe for most people to practice - (known to be less triggering than some other breathwork practices). Helps to cultivate a sense of calm, clarity and focus. A wonderful addition to your morning routine.

Nadi Shodhana breathing exercise cultivates calmness, clarity and focus, and is gentle and safe for most people to practice.

Alternate Nostril Breathing

Change your breath, change the state of your nervous system. From stressed to relaxed.

Control your breath to shift from stress to relaxation by affecting your nervous system.

5 Part Breath for Relaxation

Earthing or grounding is the practice of having direct skin contact with the Earth's electromagnetic field and has many healing benefits including better sleep, less stress, and for emotional balance among other benefits.

Earthing, or direct skin contact with Earth's electromagnetic field, has numerous healing benefits such as improving sleep, reducing stress, and emotional balance.

Earthing For Health And Wellbeing

Sensory Motor Amnesia (coined by the late Thomas Hanna), is the brain's inability to consciously remember, whether or not a chronically tense muscle (either through injury or mental/emotional stress) needs releasing. This talk explores this concept and its role in some types of chronic pain and suggests a couple of techniques to begin the journey of "reawakening" the brain-body connection.

Sensory Motor Amnesia is the brain's inability to release a chronically tense muscle, leading to chronic pain, explored in this talk with suggested techniques.

Reawakening The Brain Body Connection

Becoming more self-aware of how our minds work, being more mindfully present with our thoughts and emotions, can dampen the stress response and help us stay out of feelings of overwhelm.

Increased self-awareness through mindfulness can reduce stress response and prevent overwhelming emotions.

Managing Overwhelm

The peace we wish to see in the world begins within our own hearts and minds.

Peace Begins Within

You are enough. You are a miracle of existence. Nature does not need to prove its value... why do we? It's healing to take time and remind yourself of this.

Reminder: You are enough and a miracle of existence. Take time to acknowledge this truth for a healing experience.

You Are Enough

Our first instincts are often to try and resist or suppress difficult and painful emotions. But what if, instead, we practiced "leaning in" to them?

"Leaning in" to difficult emotions may be a better approach than resisting or suppressing them, suggests new perspective.

Leaning in to Difficult Emotions

Emotions come and go like changing weather patterns. But sometimes we hold onto negative emotions so long that we can get lost in them, finding it hard to let them go. Learning that we have a choice as to how long we hold on to them can be liberating.

We have a choice in how long we hold onto negative emotions, which can be liberating.

Holding The Stone

Speak kind words to your body and heart because they are waiting to hear it.

Be kind to your body and heart by speaking positive words.

I Am Safe, I Am Loved

Our daily practice is so integral to growth and transformation but true growth is shown as shifts in perspective and behavior out in the world - in our day-to-day lives.

Daily practice is important for personal growth, but true growth is reflected in changed perspectives and behaviors in our daily lives.

Transformation And Growth

RAIN - an effective mindfulness strategy for dealing with difficult emotions.

RAIN - effective mindfulness for dealing with difficult emotions.

R-A-I-N

The Buddha taught that man causes his own suffering, by holding on to painful stories and narratives.

Buddha teaches that man can worsen suffering through actions.

The Two Arrows of Pain

Procrastination is a form of resistance. If you find yourself prone to procrastination, some simple tools can help you act on your desires and move towards your goals. Seriously. This is a fun game to try!

Overcome procrastination and move towards your goals with simple tools, as procrastination is a form of resistance and can be treated as a fun game.

Countdown to Action

Learning to notice the content of our thoughts so that we can become more aware of the stories we tell ourselves about life and others, that aren't necessarily true and the "predictive conversations" we fabricate. Paying attention to what's true and what's just thought generated can help eliminate needless suffering.

Becoming aware of thoughts and distinguishing truth can eliminate unnecessary suffering caused by predicting conversations and untrue stories.

Mind Stories

Some negative thoughts are very useful and necessary, keeping us safe and away from danger…But once we've determined that negative storylines no longer serve us or have become unhealthy for us, we can consider reframing and redirecting them.

Negative thoughts can be useful for safety, but can become unhealthy; reframing and redirecting them is important.

Reframing Negative Storylines

Change your mind and how you feel - one smile at a time! Let me know by commenting below what results - however subtle - you notice by smiling and changing your body posture. I'd love to know!

Change your mood with a smile and body posture - share results through comments.

One Smile at a Time

Caught up in black or white, either/or thinking? Learn to use the word "And" to see things more realistically and compassionately. (Photo: @ZaneLee - Unsplash)

Break free from binary thinking by embracing the power of "And" for a more nuanced and empathetic perspective.

The Power of And

Ever feel unmotivated? Stuck in procrastination mode? If not, lucky you. Many experience this daily. I want to share my hack for this. It's a fun game to play when all else has failed and It works! (photo credit: @Andre Bui- Unsplash)

Beat procrastination with a fun game that actually works to keep you motivated daily. (photo credit: @Andre Bui- Unsplash)

Gifts To Your Future Self

The latest in Neuroscience gives us a list of the most effective things you can do to help foster good sleep habits and give yourself more opportunity to sleep well...

Neuroscience offers effective ways to foster good sleep habits for better sleep.

Preparations For a Good Night's Sleep

Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't. You're right!

Your mindset determines your success, whether you believe you can or can't achieve something.

Mindset and the Confirmation Bias

Seasoned meditators perceive time differently. It seems to pass slower for them Here are a few suggestions on how you can slow down time in your own life and experience more out of each day, lending your focused awareness to the little things. (Photo: @Jason Leung Unsplash)

Meditators perceive time more slowly, and here are tips to slow down time in daily life, focusing on small moments for increased awareness.

It's The Little Things

Linking breath and gentle movement to get out of a chronic freeze response is a powerful and natural way to shift feelings of anxiety and overwhelm.

Breath and gentle movement can help overcome chronic freeze response, easing anxiety and overwhelm.

Breath & Movement To Ease Anxiety

Helpful tools to soothe the inner critic and move past negative thought loops that can keep us awake at night

Tools to calm inner critic and overcome negative thoughts to improve sleep.

Quiet Your Mind for Peaceful Sleep

We don't need to sit in formal meditation to practice being mindful. Use your next weekend's visit to your local Big Box Store as an opportunity to practice and hone your mindfulness skills.

Practice mindfulness during your next trip to a Big Box Store and hone your skills without formal meditation.

Big Box Store Mindfulness Challenge

Walking meditation is like mindfulness in action. In this track, learn how to practice walking meditation like the forest monks of South East Asia. Encourages embodiment, mindfulness, presence, and calm.

Learn to practice walking meditation like Southeast Asian forest monks for embodiment, mindfulness, presence, and calm.

A Guide to Walking Meditation

Research concludes that it takes 3 positive thoughts to replace 1 negative thought and begin to rewire your brain.

Replacing negative thoughts with positive ones requires 3 positive thoughts to rewire your brain, according to research.

3 Good Things

Through a process called "Embodied Cognition," our brain communicates with our body and in turn, our body with our brain to determine many things related to our self-esteem, our energy levels, our mood, our confidence, and our stress levels. Our posture is one of the key ways this feedback loop gets information. Bad posture can signal to the brain a lot of negative information about the state of things...and likewise, when we are feeling negative or low, our brain relays this to our body and our posture then reflects this. Learn how to practice good posture and the value of having good posture, and in turn, encourage a more positive outlook. Photo: unsplash.com/@lesanderson

Our brain communicates with our body through Embodied Cognition, where bad posture signals negativity and good posture encourages a positive outlook.

Change Your Posture Change Your Mood

Each day we get to begin anew. Our journey is lightened by letting go of things that are out of our control and affirming what IS within our control.

Let go of what is out of your control and focus on what you can control to begin anew each day.

Letting Go Of What's Out Of Your Control

In this guided meditation, we take a look at some of the patterns of our minds and the tendency to spend a lot of time in the past or the future - rehashing the past or rehearsing for possible futures...Between the two lies reality... what actually is occurring right now.

Meditation helps to focus on the present moment and avoid dwelling on past or future events.

Bring Your Mind into the Present

This is an affirmation meditation created to help you greet each new day with an open heart and mind, full of wonder and curiosity, letting the shadows of the past fall behind you.

Affirmation meditation to start the day with an open heart and mind, leaving the past behind.

A New Day Full Of Infinite Possibility

Take 30 minutes out of your day to journey with me in this guided meditation that comes from Yoga Nidra. Spend some time in the Alpha and Theta states - where the brain and body experience deep, restorative relaxation and healing. The more you practice, the more beneficial it becomes. They say that one hour of practicing Yoga Nidra is the equivalent of 4 hours of sleep in terms of its effect on the central nervous system. This meditation can be done any time you need to de-stress and recharge your batteries. It can also be used in preparation for a good night's sleep.

Experience deep relaxation and healing in just 30 minutes with guided Yoga Nidra meditation, equivalent to 4 hours of sleep, anytime you need to de-stress.

Deep Restorative Relaxation

Take a few minutes out of your day to check in and send a little love and gratitude to yourself - you deserve it!

Give yourself love and gratitude by taking a few minutes out of your day.

A Love Hug

Start your day with peace and hope in your heart and let it set the tone for a beautiful day ahead of you. (photo creds @Leo Visions, Unsplash)

Begin each day with peace and hope in your heart, setting the tone for a beautiful day ahead. (📸: @Leo Visions, Unsplash)

Peaceful Morning, Beautiful Day

A cornerstone of mindfulness is cultivating the witness or observer perspective. In this guided meditation we practice this by creating space between stimulus and response, and learning that as the observer we can take time to choose what thoughts, feelings and emotions get to have our attention.

Learn to cultivate the observer perspective in mindfulness by creating space between stimulus and response and choosing what thoughts, feelings, and emotions to focus on.

Cultivating The Witness Perspective

Let me guide you through the Yoga Nidra practice of the 61 points meditation, helping you to achieve full-body peace and to rest deeply into your bones, in preparation for sleep.

Learn Yoga Nidra's 61 points meditation to achieve full-body peace and deep rest before sleep, with expert guidance.

The 61 Points Of Relaxation

The simple hand gesture of Anjali Mudra (prayer hands) is practiced across different cultures and is a simple yet effective way to cultivate inner peace, unification, and serenity. (photo creds @Andreea Popa-Unsplash)

Anjali Mudra, a universal hand gesture, cultivates inner peace, unification, and serenity.

Finding Peace And Serenity

Your body holds so much wisdom that often gets overlooked. Take a mindful pause and ask your body what it needs to feel safe and nourished. It always answers if you ask it. Honour your inner wisdom and practice connecting within.

Listen to your body's wisdom, ask what it needs to feel safe and nourished, and honor your inner wisdom by connecting within.

Ask Your Body What it Needs

A fun visualization exercise to help anchor your awareness to stillness in the mind.

Visualization exercise to enhance awareness of mental stillness; promotes focus and relaxation.

Mind Like A Flower

Guided meditation and body scan are designed to help you surrender to sleep and let go of the tensions and stressors of the day.

Guided meditation and body scan promote relaxation and help release stress and tension, aiding in the process of falling asleep.

Allowing For Sleep

In this deeply relaxing meditation, practice being the observer and cultivating space and stillness between you and your emotions, sensations, and everything else that occurs around you.

A meditation to observe emotions and cultivate stillness and space.

Mindfulness Meditation

Pain of any kind can feel overwhelming. It can sometimes feel like there is nowhere in our body that is free of it. This meditation and body scan helps us learn to listen to the body and identify more localized areas where the pain lives and we can practice softening and lessening its grip on us.

Meditation and body scan help to identify localized pain and lessen its grip on the body.

Listening to the Body When There's Pain

In this guided meditation and visualization we practice sitting in stillness and in sanctuary, like a rock in a stream, allowing our thoughts and emotions to float past us, carried away by the flowing river of the mind.

Meditation visualizes sitting still and letting thoughts pass like a rock in a stream.

Thoughts Floating Downstream

Come with me on a Yoga Nidra/ Non Sleep Deep Relaxation journey as we prepare the bodymind for a deep and restful sleep.

Join me on a Yoga Nidra/NSDR journey to relax the body and mind for peaceful sleep.

Peaceful Sleep Journey

It's amazing how much of our time is spent thinking of the future or the past. Meanwhile, life happens in the present. Practice training your mind to recognize when you are journeying too frequently into the past or the future, and away from your life right now. Away from your beautiful, miraculous life....happening right now!

Focus on the present moment and train your mind to recognize when you are dwelling on the past or future too much. Your beautiful life is happening right now.

Residing in the Present Moment

Often it can be easier to extend kindness and compassion to those with who we have effortless and easy connections, but not as easy to direct that energy towards ourselves, or to those with who we are experiencing difficulties within a relationship. In this guided meditation, we take time to practice sending loving-kindness towards ourselves and to others, regardless of the status of our relationship with them.

A guided meditation to practice loving-kindness towards oneself and others, even in difficult relationships, to cultivate compassion.

Practising Loving Kindness

Join me for a stress-releasing meditation as we consciously let go of tension in our upper body to support relaxation. (photo creds: @Mio Ito on Unsplash)

Meditation for releasing stress in upper body and promoting relaxation with photo credit to @Mio Ito on Unsplash.

Releasing Muscle Tension For Relaxation

When we are unwell, we can sometimes forget that the lack of harmony and balance within our own mind-body can contribute to the stress of feeling unwell. Nurturing this relationship is as powerful as all the supplements and medicines and comforts that we give ourselves from the outside.

Nurturing the mind-body relationship is as important as taking medicine when feeling unwell.

Connecting To Your Inner Healer

Guided visualization of sitting in a relaxing and pretty English Garden, engaging the senses. encouraging you to be present and relaxed in the present moment.

Visualize yourself in a serene English Garden, using your senses to be present and relaxed in the moment.

Sitting In An English Garden

This meditation helps us to lessen the grip that emotional or physical pain can have on us, by practicing lending a soft and soothing compassionate awareness to what is felt - instead of resisting or pushing it away. Coming from love, not fear.

This meditation teaches us to embrace and alleviate emotional or physical pain with compassionate awareness, reducing its hold on us.

Soften, Soothe, Allow

A guided meditation visualizing a mountain - letting the mountain's powerful and grounded natural majesty teach us stillness, strength and resilience. We learn so much wisdom from observing nature.

Meditate on a mountain to learn stillness, strength, and resilience from nature's wisdom.

The Mountain

Take some much needed time out for some self compassion. Use this meditation anytime you're in need of some support and reassurance surrounding difficult emotions.

Use a self-compassion meditation for support and reassurance during difficult emotions. Take time out for yourself.

A Self Compassion Break

This is not a guided meditation, but it is more an anecdotal description of one of my own meditation sessions. Some might consider it to be very unsuccessful and that the goal of this type of meditation is to be free of mind chatter and to quiet the mind. They would have missed the point. Have a laugh with me in commiseration at how chatty my mind was and how PERFECT the session really was.

Anecdotal description of a meditation session with mind chatter, proving that a successful meditation session doesn't require a quiet mind.

The Perfect Meditation Sitting

This poem entitled "The Guesthouse" by the Sufi Mystic, Rumi, advises us to "entertain all the guests of the mind", with grace and laughter.

Rumi's "The Guesthouse" poem urges us to welcome all mental guests with grace and laughter.

The Guesthouse

A short passage from the spiritual and inspirational author, Khalil Gibran. In this poem entitled, "Earth" we ponder the connection of man and earth...are we separate, connected, or one and the same being, gazing out and reflecting each other in a dance of love and devotion.

"Earth" by Khalil Gibran explores the connection between man and earth, questioning if we are separate or one and the same, reflecting each other in love.

Earth by Khalil Gibran

Unwind before sleep and let this poem by French 19th century poet, Charles Baudelaire, transport you on travelers' seas...

Relax with Baudelaire's poem and journey through the seas of travelers before bedtime.

The Voyage

This is a story from Zen Buddhism that speaks of the tendency to dwell on the past instead of embracing the present.

Zen story warns against holding on to the past for happiness.

The Woman By The River

This is a classic parable told in various ways in cultures all over the world and reminds us that sometimes all we need is right here in front of us. People work hard their whole lives to become wealthy so that they can retire simply. The fisherman reminds us of the value of living the simple life right now.

The parable highlights the value of living a simple life and finding happiness in the present rather than striving for retirement.

The Fisherman and the Businessman

This story comes to us from Hindu Mythology and the Puranas. It's the story of Narada the great sage, who receives a lesson from his teacher Vishnu on the power of Maya - illusion. Adapted by Tanya Edmonds

Narada learns about the power of illusion from Vishnu in a Hindu myth from the Puranas.