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

How the Whale Got His Throat by Rudyard Kipling — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime

 

A soothing bedtime story to help you drift off tonight: Rudyard Kipling's playful, rhythmic Just So Story How the Whale Got His Throat, read slowly and gently for sleep and insomnia relief. Kipling wrote the Just So Stories specifically as bedtime tales for his own daughter, to be told "just so," word for word, until she drifted off — which makes this one of the most naturally calming stories in the whole Books at Bedtime strand, also known as Coffee Break for the Soul, from the Calming Anxiety podcast.

For the full library, plus ambient night-light features for the small hours, download Anchored:

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

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

 

Narrated softly by Martin Hewlett, clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic, this reading follows a very hungry whale, a clever little 'Stute Fish, and a shipwrecked Mariner of "infinite-resource-and-sagacity" whose jack-knife and suspenders solve rather more than anyone expects. Short, whimsical, and full of Kipling's sing-song repetition, it's an easy, unhurried listen for falling asleep, insomnia, or quieting an anxious mind at the end of the day.

 

First published in 1902 in the collection Just So Stories for Little Children, Rudyard Kipling's How the Whale Got His Throat is in the public domain worldwide (Kipling died in 1936); this reading is Calming Anxiety's own narration of the classic public-domain text.

 

This episode joins the Just So Stories already in the Books at Bedtime strand — The Elephant's Child, How the Leopard Got His Spots, How the Camel Got His Hump, The Cat That Walked by Himself, and The Beginning of the Armadillos — alongside Oscar Wilde's fairy tales, classic short fiction from Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, and Kate Chopin, and longer serialised reads including Alice in Wonderland, The Time Machine, and The Hound of the Baskervilles, with new instalments added regularly to the main Calming Anxiety feed.

 

 

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

 

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.

Everything Is Too Much Right Now — A 10-Minute Meditation for Overwhelm | 4-7-8 Breathing & The Torch

 

Everything is too much right now — the messages, the list, the things you haven't done yet, the things you haven't even started. For the next ten minutes, none of it needs you. Just this. If overwhelm hits you midday, the Instant Calm session in the Anchored app is there in seconds, no waiting, no logging in — and for the price of a large coffee, $5.99 gets you a full month of the ad-free app and everything in it. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669

 

Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett, today's session opens with 4-7-8 breathing before offering a simple new way to picture an overwhelmed mind: not a mountain to move all at once, but a dark room lit by a single torch. You were never meant to light the whole room. You just move the beam to one thing — this one breath, this one cup of tea — and let everything else wait quietly in the dark for its turn.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

* 00:00 – Cold open: everything is too much right now

* 00:22 – Channel open & Anchored Instant Calm

* 00:44 – Breathing: 4-7-8, three rounds

* 03:06 – Why overwhelm feels unbearable

* 03:49 – The torch in a dark room

* 04:35 – One small task, then be kind to yourself

* 04:57 – Today's Gentle Affirmations

* 06:54 – Affirmations, second pass

* 08:02 – Three Daily Caring Tips

* 08:47 – Grounding: come back into the room

* 09:39 – Outro & be kind

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

Let these words find their place:

I do not have to deal with everything at once.

I can move the light to one thing at a time.

This moment is enough for me to handle.

Everything else can wait in the dark a little longer.

I am allowed to do one thing at a time.

I can move the light to one task and one task only.

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

1. **Write it down, then pick one** — When you feel overwhelmed, write down everything on your mind, then pick just one thing to do next and ignore the rest of the list for now.

2. **Three breaths before your phone** — Before you check your phone in the morning, take three slow breaths with a longer out-breath than in-breath.

3. **Find the smallest next step** — When a task feels too big, ask yourself: what is the smallest possible next step, and do only that?

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

If this helped, Anchored is there for your next overwhelming moment — the same voice, ready to help you unwind, for $5.99 a month, ad-free. 👉 [Download Anchored on the App Store Today](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669)

 

If someone you know is carrying too much today, why not share this episode with them — and a 30-second rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps more people find this when they need it most.

 

…be kind.

 

 

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

 

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.

The Devoted Friend by Oscar Wilde — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime

 

A gentle bedtime story to help you drift off tonight: Oscar Wilde's sharply funny fable The Devoted Friend, read slowly and unhurried for sleep and insomnia relief. This continues the Books at Bedtime strand — also known as Coffee Break for the Soul — from the Calming Anxiety podcast, a series of classic story readings designed as a calming audiobook for restless nights.

 For the full library, plus ambient night-light features for the small hours, download Anchored on iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669

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

 

Narrated softly by Martin Hewlett, clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic, this reading follows kind-hearted little Hans and the rich miller who calls himself Hans's most devoted friend while quietly taking advantage of his generosity. Framed as a story-within-a-story, told by a linnet to a rather pompous water rat beside a pond, it's classic Wilde — witty, satirical, and gently moralising, ideal as an unhurried listen for falling asleep or quieting an anxious mind before bed.

 

First published in 1888 in the collection The Happy Prince and Other Tales, Oscar Wilde's The Devoted Friend is in the public domain worldwide (Wilde died in 1900); this reading is Calming Anxiety's own narration of the classic public-domain text.

 

This episode continues the Books at Bedtime strand, alongside The Selfish Giant, The Happy Prince, The Sphinx Without a Secret, The Nightingale and the Rose, and The Model Millionaire (also by Oscar Wilde), and classic short fiction from Katherine Mansfield, Kate Chopin, and Arthur Conan Doyle — currently working through The Hound of the Baskervilles — with new instalments added regularly to the main Calming Anxiety feed.

 

 

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

 

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.

Replaying Today, Rehearsing Tomorrow? — A Racing Thoughts Meditation | Sigh Breathing & The Train Platform

 

If your mind won't switch off — replaying today and rehearsing tomorrow all at once — you don't have to make it stop. Just for the next ten minutes, let's do something different. If a busy mind catches you somewhere without headphones, there's a free Instant Calm session inside the Anchored app: no sign-up, no subscription, works offline, ready the second you need it. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669

 

Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett, today's episode starts with a simple sigh-style breath — in through the nose, out slower and longer, like a natural sigh — before offering a new way to picture a busy mind: not broken, just busy, with thoughts arriving like trains pulling into a station. You don't have to chase every train, or check where it's going. You can simply notice it arrive, and let it leave the platform.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

* 00:00 – Cold open: if your mind won't switch off

* 00:24 – Channel open & Anchored Instant Calm

* 00:49 – Breathing: the sigh breath

* 02:21 – Why a busy mind isn't broken

* 03:13 – The train platform

* 04:34 – Coming back into the room

* 05:16 – Today's Gentle Affirmations

* 06:39 – Affirmations, second pass

* 08:03 – Three Daily Caring Tips

* 08:53 – Coming back, stretch and open your eyes

* 09:21 – Outro, Anchored & an Android update

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

Let these words land:

I do not have to follow every thought.

I can let a thought arrive and then let it leave.

I do not have to solve tomorrow, tonight.

My mind can be busy while I stay calm.

I can come back to this moment anytime I need to.

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

1. **Picture it leaving the platform** — When a racing thought pulls at you tonight, picture it as a train leaving the station without you.

2. **Three rounds before bed** — Before bed, breathe out longer than you breathe in. Just three rounds is enough to tell your body it's safe to rest.

3. **Write it down, don't carry it** — If your mind starts listing tomorrow's problems, write one line down on paper. You do not have to carry it in your head as well.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

If this helped, Anchored is there for you between episodes — free Instant Calm, no sign-up, works offline. 👉 [Download Anchored on the App Store Today](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669)

 

If you know someone whose mind won't switch off either, sharing this episode costs nothing and might mean everything to them — and a 30-second rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps more people find this when they need it most.

 

…be kind.

 

 

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

 

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.

Anchored is Now on Android! — Free Anxiety & Panic Attack Relief App with Guided Meditation, Breathing Exercises & Sleep Stories

 

Anchored is now on Android. After a long wait, the anxiety relief app and panic attack relief app that started life right here on Calming Anxiety is finally available on both Android and iPhone — guided breathing exercises, guided meditation for anxiety, and an Instant Calm SOS feature you can reach for the moment you need it. Get it free on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored — or on the App Store for iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669

 

The Calming Anxiety podcast isn't going anywhere — it stays completely free, with thousands of episodes for you to keep listening to on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. But where the podcast player is built for listening, Anchored is built as a toolkit: something to reach for right when anxiety or a panic attack hits, whether that's at your desk, in bed, on a plane, or in the supermarket at 3am.

 

Inside the app: an Instant Calm SOS session that drops you straight into calm without searching, works free, premium, and fully offline; visual breathing tools you can simply watch and follow, so you're never trying to remember or count a complicated breathing pattern mid-panic; and a growing Books at Bedtime library — now 40 sleep stories, all narrated personally by Martin, for the anxious 3am moments as much as the ordinary bedtime ones. Anchored Premium adds ad-free listening, saved favourites, offline downloads, extra breathing and relaxation tools, and an ambient night-light feature to help you drift off.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

* 00:00 – Anchored is now on Android

* 00:19 – Why an app, when the podcast is already free?

* 01:05 – Instant Calm SOS

* 01:31 – Visual breathing tools — just watch and breathe

* 01:58 – Books at Bedtime: 40 narrated sleep stories

* 02:19 – Anchored Premium: ad-free, offline, ambient night light

* 02:52 – Why it's called Anchored

* 03:54 – How to find it on Google Play or the App Store

* 04:33 – Thank you

 

📱 Get Anchored — Available Now on Android & iPhone

Search "Anchored panic and anxiety" on Google Play or the App Store, or use the direct links below. Free to download, with Instant Calm always available, no subscription required.

👉 [Get Anchored on Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored)

👉 [Get Anchored on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669)

 

If you've been with me through the sleepless nights, the panic attacks, and the anxious thoughts over the years — thank you, seriously. Anchored started with one idea: what if everything we've learned together on this podcast could sit in your pocket for whenever you need it? Now it does.

 

…be kind.

 

 

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

 

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.