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

The Twopenny Spell 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 Twopenny Spell by E. Nesbit, the much-loved author of The Railway Children. It's a funny, warm-hearted tale of a brother, a sister and one very poorly chosen magic spell. It was written in the early 1900s 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, gentle, well-behaved Lucy has had enough of her brother Harry, especially after he buries her up to her waist among the gooseberry bushes. With twopence from Uncle Richard in her pocket, she finds a shop she has never noticed before: a flower-filled parlour belonging to Mr. Deloro Delara, Professor of White and Black Magic. The best spell twopence can buy will make her as strong as Harry, and Harry as weak as her. But by the next morning, nothing in their corner of Victorian Blackheath is quite the way it should be.

 

Witty, wise and full of Nesbit's sharp eye for how children really behave, this is a story about fairness, sibling squabbles and the one thing no spell can survive: a kiss and a heartfelt sorry.

 

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.

Anxious at Work and Telling Everyone You're Fine — Calm for Workplace Anxiety, Pressure & Deadlines | Physiological Sigh

 

Anxious at work and telling everyone you're fine? This 10 minute guided meditation is for workplace anxiety — the particular kind of tired that has nothing to do with sleep. The tired of holding yourself together from the moment you reach for your phone to the moment you close the laptop and realise your shoulders have been up around your ears for nine hours, and nobody at work saw a thing. Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett.

 

Today's breathwork is the physiological sigh, chosen deliberately because of all the breathing techniques taught on this show, this is the one you can use at work without a single person noticing. No counting to sixteen. No sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the printer. Two breaths in through the nose, one long slow breath out through the mouth — and your heart rate settles. That is not your imagination, that's your vagus nerve doing precisely the job it was built for.

 

Work stress, deadline pressure, the inbox that never empties, replaying the thing you said in the meeting, the anxiety of being perfect — for the next ten minutes you have nothing to achieve and nothing to fix. You don't need a cushion or a candle or a quiet room. If you're still sitting at your desk, that's perfectly all right. You just need your breath.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

 

* 00:00 – The tired that has nothing to do with sleep

* 01:14 – Welcome — ten minutes with nothing to achieve

* 02:12 – Today's breath: the physiological sigh, and why it works at your desk

* 02:43 – Guided practice: double breath in, long breath out

* 04:39 – Your vagus nerve, doing the job it was built for

* 05:14 – When the day comes wandering back in

* 05:44 – Today's gentle affirmations

* 07:14 – Deeper relaxation and the pause between breaths

* 08:07 – Your three daily caring tips

* 08:58 – A gentle return and a stretch

* 09:37 – Anchored, sharing this episode, and be kind

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

 

Visualise these words in your thoughts, and whisper them in your mind.

 

* I am calm at work, even when the work is not calm.

* My work anxiety is a feeling. It is not a fact.

* I can breathe through stress at work, and my nervous system knows how.

* I do not have to be perfect to be good at what I do.

* I am allowed to work at a human pace.

* My worth is not my output.

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

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

 

1. One sigh before the first meeting — Before the first meeting today, take one single physiological sigh at your desk. Nobody will see it, and your nervous system will thank you for it.

2. Set one boundary you can keep — Set one boundary that you can actually keep, such as no email for the first twenty minutes after you wake up.

3. Leave the screen at lunch — Make a proper break away from your screen at lunchtime, even if it's only ten minutes standing outside in the air.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

 

If today helped, come and find all of these sessions — over 3,000 of them — inside Anchored. Download Anchored on iOS. Access over 3,000 searchable, offline-ready audio sessions, sleep stories with Books at Bedtime, and built-in nightlight features for the small hours. Do the check-in tonight; it takes thirty seconds, and in a fortnight you'll know your own pattern better than any app ever could. 👉 Download Anchored on the App Store Today: https://apps.apple.com

 

And if you know someone who is holding it all together at work and telling everybody they're fine, please send them this episode. That's how this show has reached over 10 million downloads — no advertising, no huge corporation or budget, just people like you quietly passing it on. If you have 30 seconds, a rating or review on Apple Podcasts helps someone else find us today.

 

You did that. Not me. Look after yourself today, and in everything, in every thought, word and deed — be kind.

 

 

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

 

Support the Show:

 

Ad-Free Listening: Enjoy Calming Anxiety without ads at https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety--4110266/support

 

Buy Me a Coffee: Support hosting costs at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/calminganxiety

 

Newsletter: Subscribe on Substack at https://calminganxietypodcast.substack.com/?r=6zm0sc&utm_campaign=pub-share-checklist

 

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

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 Magician's Heart 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 Magician's Heart by E. Nesbit, the much-loved author of The Railway Children. It's a witty, warm-hearted fairy tale of christening curses, a magic kiss saved for twenty years, and a wicked magician who was once the dearest little boy in a plaid frock. It's the final story 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, a wicked magician who is never invited to royal christenings decides to go anyway. At one he curses little Prince Fortunatus to be the stupidest prince in the world. At the next he makes baby Princess Aura the ugliest princess in the world. But a white witch catches him before he can vanish, and gives the princess a kiss to keep until she needs it. Twenty years later, a disguised princess, a lost prince now working as a baker's boy, and the magician's devoted old nurse all arrive at his tower on the very same morning.

 

Funny, tender and full of Nesbit's sparkle, this is a story about kindness, second chances and the magic of a well-kept kiss. It ends, as all the best fairy tales should, with love, a wedding and a shower of white roses.

 

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.

What If Thoughts Won't Stop — Calm for Waiting, Uncertainty & Anticipatory Anxiety | Humming Bee Breath

 

What if thoughts won't stop when you are waiting on news, waiting on a decision, waiting on a door you cannot see behind. This 10 minute guided meditation is for anticipatory anxiety — the exhausting habit of rehearsing a problem that has not happened yet. Hosted by clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic Martin Hewlett.

 

Today's breathwork is the Humming Bee Breath, known in yoga as Bhramari. Humming does two things at once: it makes your out breath long and even without you counting anything, and the vibration travels up through the soft palate, throat and the bones of the skull, along the path of the vagus nerve. It is a signal your nervous system finds very difficult to argue with — because you cannot hum and brace at the same time. In through the nose for four, then a low soft hum all the way out for eight.

 

You do not need to see the whole road. On a long drive at night your headlights show you twenty metres of it, and you arrive every single time. Uncertainty, worry about the future, "what if" thinking, panic and overthinking — we are not going to solve any of it today. We are going to sit down beside it and find out that you can breathe here after all.

 

⏱️ Time Chapters

 

* 00:00 – The problem that hasn't happened yet

* 01:06 – Welcome, and how to settle for this one

* 01:57 – Today's breath: Humming Bee Breath (Bhramari) and the vagus nerve

* 02:58 – Guided practice: in for four, hum out for eight

* 05:28 – The silence the humming leaves behind

* 05:50 – Today's gentle affirmations

* 07:26 – Setting the heavy bag down

* 07:57 – Your three daily caring tips

* 08:45 – A gentle return and a stretch

* 09:24 – Anchored, sharing this episode, and be kind

 

🌿 Today's Gentle Affirmations

 

Words to carry with you through the day — the words that entwine themselves into the fabric of your soul.

 

* I can live with uncertainty, and I am doing it right now.

* My anxiety about the future is not a prediction.

* What if thoughts pass through me — they are not me.

* I do not need to know what happens next in order to be all right today.

* I only need to see the next 20 metres of the road in front.

* I release what I cannot control, and the weight leaves my shoulders.

* I have coped with things I once dreaded, and I coped better than I imagined.

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

 

💡 3 Daily Caring Tips

 

1. Name it out loud — When a "what if" thought arrives today, name it out loud. Say "that is a what if", and let it carry on past you.

2. Do the one part you can influence — Write down the one part of this situation you can actually influence, and do only that today.

3. Give your worry an appointment — Give your worry a 10 minute appointment this evening, and when it turns up early, tell it kindly that it has a time.

 

📱 Take Calming Anxiety With You Anywhere

 

If this one helped you, put Anchored on your home screen tonight — so that tomorrow, when the what ifs start, it's one tap away and not a surge. Download Anchored on iOS. 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 you know who is waiting on news, or standing in front of a door they cannot see behind, please send them this episode. That's how this show found 10 million downloads — not advertising, just people quietly passing it on. If you have 30 seconds, a rating or review on Apple Podcasts helps someone else find us tonight.

 

You don't have to see the whole road. So in everything, in every thought, word and deed — be kind.

 

 

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

 

Support the Show:

 

Ad-Free Listening: Enjoy Calming Anxiety without ads at https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/calming-anxiety--4110266/support

 

Buy Me a Coffee: Support hosting costs at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/calminganxiety

 

Newsletter: Subscribe on Substack at https://calminganxietypodcast.substack.com/?r=6zm0sc&utm_campaign=pub-share-checklist

 

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

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.

Justnowland 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 Justnowland by E. Nesbit, the much-loved author of The Railway Children. It's a tender fairy tale about a lonely little girl, an enchanted kingdom of crows, and a dragon who has never once been treated kindly. 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, eight-year-old Elsie has been locked in a bare attic by the stern Mrs. Staines, all for weeding up the turnips by mistake. Her father is far away in India, and there isn't so much as a piece of string to play with. Then a talking crow appears in the fireplace. He's really a Prime Minister under an enchantment, and he carries her away to a beautiful city where a whole kingdom needs her help. The only thing that can save them is someone brave enough to tame the dragon in the people's park.

 

Tender, magical and full of Nesbit's warmth, this is a story about loneliness, courage and the extraordinary power of simple kindness, with a homecoming at the end 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.