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

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.

Tight Chest Anxiety — Why You Can't Take a Full Breath | Coherence Breathing for Anxiety Relief

 

Tight chest anxiety is one of the most frightening symptoms there is — that band across the ribs, the shallow breathing, the feeling that no matter how hard you try you can't quite get a full breath in. Today's guided meditation is here to loosen it, gently, without forcing anything.

 

Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett, this 10-minute session uses coherence breathing — also known as resonance breathing or HRV breathing — a slow five-in, five-out rhythm that lands you at six breaths a minute. That's the resonant frequency of the human cardiovascular system: heart rate, breathing and blood pressure reflexes fall into step, heart rate variability rises, vagal tone improves, and the body finally reads the situation as safety.

 

No holding. No straining for a big breath. Just steady, even breathing, a set of gentle affirmations for an anxious chest, and three practical caring tips you can carry into the rest of your day. Whether you're here for anxiety relief, panic attack support, breathwork or simply a calmer nervous system — you have nothing to do for the next ten minutes but be here with me.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

 

* 00:00 – Today's focus: the anxious chest and tight, shallow breathing

 

* 00:09 – Welcome + Anchored: build your own box breathing rhythm

 

* 00:51 – Settling in: shoulders down, one hand on the stomach, one on the chest

 

* 01:34 – Teaching the breath to move downwards again: coherence breathing explained

 

* 01:56 – The one line of science: six breaths a minute, HRV and vagal tone

 

* 02:33 – Round one: in for five, out for five

 

* 03:33 – Round two: letting the shoulders sink a little further

 

* 04:17 – Round three, then unclenching the jaw

 

* 05:01 – Letting the counting go: noticing the extra room in the chest

 

* 05:21 – Deepening: loosening the band around the chest

 

* 05:48 – Today's gentle affirmations

 

* 07:23 – Visualisation: the heavy stone lifted from your chest

 

* 08:03 – Your three daily caring tips

 

* 08:48 – Coming back: fingers, toes, shoulders, one deep breath

 

* 09:24 – Outro: Anchored, share the episode, and be kind

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

 

Let these words drift and land — whisper them in your mind, or speak them out loud.

 

* My chest is softening. My breath is easing.

 

* I am calming my anxious chest, and I am safe.

 

* This tightness is anxiety in my muscles — and muscles let go.

 

* I do not need to force a deep breath. My body knows how to breathe.

 

* Every slow exhale switches on my vagus nerve.

 

* Every slow exhale tells my body the danger has passed.

 

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

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

 

1. Exhale first, and longer. When your chest tightens today, breathe out first and for longer, rather than trying to breathe in deeper.

 

2. Open the chest physically. Roll your shoulders backwards ten times and open your arms wide across a doorway — tight chest muscles hold the anxiety in place.

 

3. Cut one caffeinated drink. Just one from your day. Caffeine raises the heart rate, and that raised heart rate convinces your mind something is wrong.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

 

If your breathing feels tight often, come and find Anchored — the app I built just for you. Open it, tell it how you feel, and let it hand you the right session without having to search for it. 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 in your life who keeps saying they can't get a full breath — someone quietly frightened by their own feelings — please send them this episode. Sometimes just knowing what it is is half the relief.

 

If today helped, please share it, and take 30 seconds to leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. It's how other people who are struggling find us.

 

Until tomorrow — smile often, positive thoughts as often as you can, and then in everything, especially to yourself…

 

…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 Related Muff by E. Nesbit — A Calming Christmas 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 Related Muff by E. Nesbit, the much-loved author of The Railway Children and The Story of the Treasure Seekers. It's a warm, funny Christmas tale about first impressions, quiet courage and a cousin nobody wanted. It was first published in her 1905 collection Oswald Bastable and Others 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, it's Christmas Eve and there will be no proper Christmas this year: Aunt Ellie has come home ill from India, Mother has rushed to her side, and Father is away with his ship. Then Mother returns in a cab, not with presents, but with cousin Sydney, thin, quiet and buried in Treasure Island, who won't join in any of their games. Rupert, Hilda and Hugh decide he's nothing but a "related muff". But when a game of flying machines on the stairs goes badly wrong, it's Sydney who acts.

 

Tender, funny and full of Nesbit's sharp eye for how children really think, this is a story about kindness, getting people wrong, and the courage that sometimes hides in the quietest person in the room.

 

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.

Why Do I Feel Anxious When It Gets Dark Early? — A 10-Minute Guided Meditation for Dark Evenings & Winter Anxiety | 4-2-6 Breathing

 

Why do I feel anxious when it gets dark so early? You come out of the door in the afternoon and the light is already going, and something in you drops. It's not dramatic, just a small, quiet sinking under the ribs. Nothing has happened. It's the same evening, the same jobs, the same house. And yet it feels like the day is over and you haven't done enough with it. As the clocks go back and the nights draw in, this guided meditation is for that winter-evening anxiety.

 

If anxiety or panic sometimes catches you when you least expect it, download Anchored, Calming Anxiety's companion app, now while you're feeling okay.

The big blue Instant Calm button is completely free, works offline and needs no signing up. Search "Anchored: Panic & Anxiety", or 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.

 

Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett, this episode uses 4-2-6 breathing: in through the nose for four, a gentle rest for two, and out through the mouth for six. Then comes a gentle reframe. You haven't run out of the day, only the light. The early dark isn't a verdict, a deadline or a judgement on what you've done. It's simply the planet doing what it does every year, and the evening ahead is more of your day, just happening after dark. Calming affirmations and three simple caring tips for darker evenings follow.

 

Want more support? Download Martin's free Five Things to Try When Anxiety Hits at https://calminganxiety.org/calm.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

* 00:00 – When the Light Goes Early

* 00:41 – Welcome & Anchored's Instant Calm Button

* 01:27 – Finding Your Quiet Place

* 01:47 – 4-2-6 Breathing

* 04:08 – You Haven't Run Out of the Day

* 04:26 – The Dark Is Not a Verdict

* 05:27 – Affirmations for Dark Evenings

* 06:34 – Drifting Deeper

* 07:57 – Three Daily Caring Tips

* 09:12 – Coming Back Gently

* 09:42 – A Note From Martin

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

Settle in and whisper these softly after Martin, if you wish:

* I have not lost anything.

* The light not being here is only information.

* I am allowed a slow and calm evening.

* Being anxious when it gets dark so early doesn't mean anything is wrong with me.

* I do not have to prove my worth this evening.

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

1. Let it be about the light: When the light goes today, notice the small drop and let it be about the light. You don't have to agree with it. You don't have to argue with it either. Just watch it arrive and let it go through you.

2. One lamp on early: Put one lamp on early, while it's still only getting dark. Not to be organised, just so the change arrives gradually, rather than all at once when the curtains are drawn.

3. Move something you like into the dark: Take one thing you actually like and move it into a dark part of the evening on purpose. Not a job, but something you would choose. The evenings are long now. Let a piece of one belong to you.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

Download Anchored on iOS 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. The Instant Calm button is free, works offline and needs no sign-up, and you'll also find over 2,500 searchable audio sessions, sleep stories with Books at Bedtime, and built-in nightlight features for the long dark evenings. And grab Martin's free Five Things to Try When Anxiety Hits at https://calminganxiety.org/calm. If this episode helped, please share it and leave a quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It genuinely helps more people find their way here.

 

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.

The White Cat 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 White Cat by E. Nesbit, the much-loved author of The Railway Children and Five Children and It. It's a warm, magical fairy tale about a little boy, a chipped china cat and a family secret hidden for 150 years. 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, young Tavvy has had a wonderfully wicked afternoon. Last of all, he knocks a little white china cat off its shelf in the forbidden attic. When his mother lets him keep it for his very own, the china cat begins to speak, and each night she carries him away to her enchanted castle of gold and ivory, with invisible hands serving supper and a bed with a counterpane of butterfly wings.

 

But Tavvy's mother has troubles of her own, and the family may have to leave their beloved old house. What happens next is pure Nesbit: tender, funny and full of quiet magic, with an ending 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.