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

Davenport's Story by L. M. Montgomery — A Gentle Ghost Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime

 

Get cosy, let the rain fall outside and drift towards sleep with a gentle ghost story from L. M. Montgomery, the beloved author of Anne of Green Gables. Davenport's Story is a short, atmospheric tale told around the fire on a rainy afternoon, more mysterious than frightening, read slowly and softly as a bedtime story for adults who want to wind down, ease insomnia and fall into deep, restful sleep. A perfect autumn sleep story for the Halloween season.

 

A group of friends have been passing a wet afternoon swapping ghost stories, with all the usual mysterious noises, death warnings and sheeted spectres. But Jack, the sceptic of the group, is unimpressed. Every tale is second-hand, he says. Nobody has ever met a man who actually saw a ghost himself.

 

Then quiet, practical Davenport wanders in, and after a little coaxing admits that something strange did once happen to him, something he has never been able to explain. It concerns his brother Charles, a reserved man with a deep and faithful heart, and Davenport's daughter Dolly, who was always Uncle Charlie's girl. One afternoon, alone in his library, Davenport turns round to find someone standing between him and the bookcase, with a warning about a ship called the Aragon. Whether it was a dream, a coincidence or something more, you'll have to listen and decide for yourself.

 

If you enjoy this classic audiobook reading, you'll find more of L. M. Montgomery's short stories in the Books at Bedtime series from Calming Anxiety, including The Parting of the Ways, The Story of an Invitation, Kismet and By the Rule of Contrary, all ideal for a relaxing sleep audiobook night.

 

Davenport's Story was first published in 1902 and is collected in Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903. L. M. Montgomery (1874–1942) has been in the public domain for many years, and this reading is shared freely for your rest and relaxation.

 

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 at Indie Music Box

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.

Anxiety About the Week Ahead — Guided Meditation for a Busy Week or a Change of Routine | Extended Exhale Breathing

 

Anxiety about the week ahead can start before the week has even begun. Who needs what, where you have to be, how you'll fit it all in, or the unsettled feeling of a change of routine and a stretch of time you don't know what to do with. This 10-minute guided meditation for anxiety relief helps you put down a little of the weight of a week that hasn't happened yet.

 

Listen offline in Anchored, Martin's own app for panic and anxiety. The big blue Instant Calm button is free, works offline and needs no sign-up. iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669 | Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored

 

Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett. Together you'll settle into ordinary, unforced breathing, let the out-breath lengthen gently to calm the nervous system, ground yourself through your hands and feet when your mind races ahead, then repeat calming affirmations and take away three daily caring tips for anticipatory anxiety, a busy schedule, or a change of routine.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

* 00:00 – Carrying a week that hasn't happened yet

* 00:39 – Welcome to Calming Anxiety

* 01:01 – Find your quiet place

* 01:26 – Noticing the ordinary breath

* 02:05 – Softening hands and shoulders

* 02:36 – A longer, gentler out-breath

* 03:06 – Grounding through your feet

* 03:42 – When your mind runs ahead to the week

* 04:27 – Noticing the picture of the week ahead

* 04:53 – Today's gentle affirmations

* 06:12 – Relaxing deeper, repeating the affirmations

* 07:36 – Choosing the affirmation that helps most

* 08:00 – 3 Daily Caring Tips

* 09:01 – Returning to the room

* 09:35 – Anchored: Instant Calm, free and offline

* 10:04 – Martin's 5 Things to Try When Anxiety Hits

* 10:22 – Be kind

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

Repeat these quietly whenever the week ahead feels too much:

* I can meet this week one day at a time.

* I can prepare without predicting everything.

* A change of routine does not mean I have to get everything right.

* My needs belong in the plan as well.

* I can return to today when tomorrow feels too heavy.

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

1. **Arranging, not imagining** – Separate what needs arranging from what you're imagining. Write down one practical thing you can act on and choose when to do it.

2. **One point of structure** – Give the day one simple point of structure: a meal, a short walk, or a time to check in with someone. You can create a little shape without filling every hour.

3. **Ask early** – Ask for one specific piece of help before the pressure builds: a shared job, a lift, some company, or someone taking over for a while. A clear request gives people a better chance to support you.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

Download Anchored for a familiar voice close by during the week, with free Instant Calm whenever anxiety hits:

 

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

 

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

 

🧡 Get Martin's free 5 Things to Try When Anxiety Hits: https://calminganxiety.org/calm

 

If this episode helped, please share it with someone who's dreading the week ahead, and take 30 seconds to leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. It helps others find calm too.

 

And in everything, my friend, 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 at Indie Music Box

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 Parting of the Ways by L. M. Montgomery — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime

 

Settle in, dim the lights and let this classic short story by L. M. Montgomery, the beloved author of Anne of Green Gables, carry you gently towards sleep. The Parting of the Ways is a quiet, late-summer tale of friendship, faith and a choice made in private, read slowly and softly as a bedtime story for adults who want to wind down, ease insomnia and drift into deep, restful sleep.

 

At a seaside hotel at the end of the season, the gossips on the piazza watch the beautiful Mrs. Beatrice Longworth walk down the shore road, and murmur about her unhappy marriage and the attentions of another man. Out among the warm sand hills and golden sea grasses she finds Stephen Gordon, the shy, dreamy, overgrown boy who has been her loyal friend all summer and who dreams of becoming a great artist.

 

Stephen has news. A telegram from his father calls him to Rome to study art, and he leaves tomorrow. But before he goes he has something he needs to say to her, and in his halting, heartfelt way he tells Beatrice what her friendship has meant to him. What he says reaches her at exactly the moment it matters most, and the story closes in the stillness of her room with a decision only she will ever know about.

 

This is one of L. M. Montgomery's tender, beautifully understated stories about the quiet ways one person can change another. If you enjoy it, you'll find more of her short stories in the Books at Bedtime series from Calming Anxiety, including The Story of an Invitation, Kismet, By the Rule of Contrary and Uncle Richard's New Year's Dinner, all perfect for a relaxing sleep audiobook night.

 

The Parting of the Ways was first published in 1907 and is collected in Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908. L. M. Montgomery (1874–1942) has been in the public domain for many years, and this classic audiobook reading is shared freely for your rest and relaxation.

 

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 at Indie Music Box

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.

How Do I Stop Overthinking Everything? — Guided Meditation for a Busy Mind | Anxiety Relief

 

How do I stop overthinking everything? You replay the conversation, then rehearse the next one. You go over what you should have said, what they might have meant, and whether something you haven't even done yet will go wrong. This 10-minute guided meditation for overthinking gives a busy mind something simpler to return to.

 

Listen offline in Anchored, Martin's own app, where your three daily caring tips are written down and saved for you. iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669 | Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored

 

Clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett guides you through gentle out-breath awareness, with nothing to hold and nothing to count, a simple way to stop following a thought for the length of one breath, five calming affirmations for racing thoughts and rumination, and three daily caring tips for when overthinking is wearing you down.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

* 00:00 – How do I stop overthinking everything?

* 00:37 – Welcome to Calming Anxiety

* 00:57 – Finding a quiet place

* 01:15 – Noticing the breath you already have

* 01:37 – Following the out-breath

* 02:05 – Softening the jaw and shoulders

* 02:34 – Stop following a thought for one breath

* 02:54 – When a thought pulls you away

* 03:29 – A slower out-breath, nothing to count

* 03:59 – When "let go" feels like another instruction

* 04:50 – "There's that thought again"

* 05:23 – Five gentle affirmations

* 06:00 – How one thought becomes a long trail

* 07:54 – Letting the words settle

* 08:16 – 3 Daily Caring Tips

* 09:11 – Returning to the room

* 09:43 – Your tips saved in Anchored

* 10:26 – Never give up, and be kind

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

Repeat these quietly whenever your mind won't stop overthinking:

* I can notice a thought without following it.

* I can leave that thought unfinished for now.

* I do not have to solve every worry right now.

* I can leave the conversation in the past.

* I can take one step without knowing every outcome.

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

1. **Write it in one sentence** – When a worry keeps repeating, write it down in one sentence. Ask yourself whether there is a practical step you can take, and if there is, choose when to take it.

2. **Practise returning** – Use an ordinary moment to practise returning: while washing your hands, making a drink or sitting down. Feel your feet and notice one easy out-breath.

3. **Let someone know** – Let someone know if overthinking is wearing you down. You can say, "I've been getting caught up in my thoughts and I'd like to talk." If it's regularly affecting your sleep or everyday life, speak to your doctor or a qualified therapist.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

Your three daily caring tips are always there in Anchored, written down and saved. Downloading it and leaving a review supports the show, and you can go ad-free inside the app:

 

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

 

If this episode helped, please share it on your social media, and take 30 seconds to leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. It helps others find calm too.

 

And in everything, my friend, 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 at Indie Music Box

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.

By the Rule of Contrary by L. M. Montgomery — A Funny Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime

 

Drift off to sleep with By the Rule of Contrary by L. M. Montgomery, a warm and gently funny country love story read aloud by Martin Hewlett on Books at Bedtime, the sleep story series from Calming Anxiety.

 

Out in the turnip field on a summer afternoon, young Burton Ellis tells his father the truth. He has been courting Madge Oliver all summer, they are engaged, and they hope to marry in the autumn. Old John Ellis, known as the most contrary man in Greenwood, flies into a rage. No son of his will marry an Oliver, and if Burton does, he won't see a cent of money or a rod of land.

 

Down in her little brown house, Madge cries her heart out. But her aunt, Miss Susan Oliver, a tall, grim-looking spinster with the kindest heart in the district, isn't worried at all. She went to school with John Ellis, and she knows exactly how to manage him.

 

So Miss Susan squares her shoulders, twists up her grey hair, and marches up the lane to his veranda. What follows is a delightful battle of wills, a lesson in how to drive a pig, and an ending that will leave you smiling as you drift off.

 

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 L. M. Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables, you'll find more of her short stories on Books at Bedtime, including Kismet, The Story of an Invitation, A Case of Trespass, A Golden Wedding and Uncle Richard's New Year's Dinner.

 

By the Rule of Contrary was first published in 1908 and is collected in Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908. L. M. Montgomery (1874–1942) 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 at Indie Music Box

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.