Melt Away Your Stress in Just Over 10 Minutes

We live in a fast-paced world, and balancing the demands of daily life can be pretty stressful. Deadlines, financial responsibilities, testy managers and gridlock can all cultivate an environment of chronic stress that can have adverse effects on your health. While a certain degree of stress is to be expected, letting it control you just isn't good for you! A really simple way to help you stay balanced and get back to center can be easily experienced through guided relaxation.

Guided relaxation practices provide a simple coping mechanism to help deal with the effects of chronic tension. These exercises can be practiced nearly everywhere and provide a healthy option for managing the effects of stress and anxiety. Specifically, the Mayo Clinic's online guide to stress management states that guided relaxation techniques can be used to release muscle tension, lower blood pressure and slow the heart and breath rates.

This week, I've collaborated with award-winning contemporary acoustic artist Meg Hutchinson to create an 11-minute guided relaxation practice that you can do at home. Practice it for a week and watch the stress melt away!

Stressed out? Check out the guided meditation practice below.

Audio: David Magone
Piano: Meg Hutchinson
*Meg Hutchinson appears courtesy of Red House Records

For more by David Magone, click here.

For more on meditation, click here.

 

Follow David Magone on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidmagone

Comments

[annesmithson]

05:10 PM on 08/01/2012

Great article. I am a believer in guided meditation myself. Two of the biggest advantages: it is affordable compared to other meditation practices and can be done anywhere (especially if you have guided meditation CDs or guided imagery MP3s). I also find guided meditation less intimidating than many other meditation techniques I have attempted.

[David Magone]

11:33 AM on 08/09/2012

Thanks Anne! I agree. When I first started practicing, I found it so helpful to be guided during meditation. It's so much easier to let go when you don't need to worry about what comes next. I like to do guided practices over and over again to log them into my memory banks so that I can use them when I'm without my laptop.

[futurelibrarian]

10:06 AM on 07/24/2012

I did this meditation twice after having what felt close to a panic attack this morning. Unlike so many guided meditation audios, there is nothing pretentious or distracting about David's voice. His voice and the complementary piano became secondary to my own breathing. The tightness in my chest disappeared. I opened my eyes feeling more calm, secure and focused. This helped so much. Thank you.

[David Magone]

11:38 AM on 08/09/2012

I'm so glad that the practice helped FL! Panic attacks can be really scary to experience and it's great that you were able to use meditation to fend it off.

Thanks for sharing your experience!