5 Minute Guided Meditation for Anxiety
When worry is already physical, this five-minute audio works from the ground up: contact with the floor, a longer leaving-breath, and room to feel what is here without a debate.
Before you begin
Feel something solid under you. Eyes open is fine if closed feels worse.
Read the transcript22 spoken passages
To begin this meditation for anxiety, rest one hand on the belly.
When your body feels ready, you may softly close your eyes.
With your eyes closed, take a moment to feel the hand rising and falling.
First, simply noticing sensation — tightness, heat, flutter — not as the future.
Anxiety can speak in the body. You do not have to answer with a whole story.
What else do you notice under the palm, besides the wish that this would stop?
What is it like to stay with this inch of belly, instead of the next ten years?
You can let the exhale be a little longer, just as a kinder leaving.
There is nothing you must fix here. Feeling is not the same as forecasting.
Soften the jaw. Soften the shoulders. Let the hand be a steady, ordinary weight.
And letting the belly be believed.
Continue now with a longer goodbye on the out-breath, as well as this contact.
Inhale as you are. Exhale a little further. Then wait, without bracing.
Thoughts may keep moving. You do not have to treat each one as a verdict.
Keeping your eyes closed, allow your awareness to include the floor holding you.
As if support is physical, present, and not an argument you have to win.
There is nothing to solve from here. There is this breath, and this hand.
If your mind wanders into the future, that is okay. Bring it back to the palm.
Being connected to belly, longer exhale, and this short stretch of being a body.
You let settling be possible. Including the leftover tremble.
Now let your attention travel back. Roll the shoulders. Wiggle the fingers.
Take this slower leaving of breath with you, as you slowly open your eyes.