Stress Archive

Mindfulness Breathing Exercises: Guide to Techniques and Benefits

Here are 6 mindfulness breathing exercises to help you reduce stress, improve sleep, uplift mood, and boost brain performance. Check it now!

Noting to Develop Non-Judgment Meditation Script

The practice of noting can help us become aware of judgments as they arise. In this non-judgment meditation script we use noting to soften reactivity.

An Emotional Release Meditation Script

Use this guided meditation to release emotions. Download it for free to help let go of overwhelming, strong emotions, or use it to guide someone else.

Mindfulness for Anger: 3 Mindfulness Exercises for Anger Management

There is nothing wrong with anger; it is how we react to it that can cause harm. Three mindfulness exercises for meeting anger as a useful human emotion that can help us set boundaries and act with care.

Alleviate Stress with 3 Deep Breaths

Guide yourself or others through three deep breaths and alleviate your stress. Use this meditation script for your personal or professional practice.

Why Stress Creates Erectile Dysfunction

Learn how stress can contribute to erectile dysfunction and how meditation may help with the stress side of it. Try step-by-step practices to ease stress and anxiety.

Mindfulness Body Scan for Stress Relief

A guided body scan script that combines progressive muscle relaxation with awareness, as an invitation to rest and ease.

Mindfulness When You Drive

Mindfulness When You Drive. Driving can be a time of stress, autopilot, or downright rage. It’s a prime opportunity to cultivate mindfulness.

Mindfulness While Being Creative

Mindfulness While Being Creative. Creativity can boost self-awareness, relieve stress, and help you solve problems more easily. Cultivate mindfulness.

Mindfulness While Waiting In Line

Mindfulness While Waiting In Line. Waiting is an unavoidable fact of life. Often, when we’re waiting (in traffic, in DMV) we grow impatient or frustrated.

8 Mindfulness Exercises For Dealing with COVID-19

Eight free mindfulness exercises for steadying the mind and body during COVID-19 or any uncertain, stressful stretch, plus tips for handling the news and staying connected.

Healing Trauma Through Mindfulness and Yoga

How trauma-sensitive yoga and mindfulness are being studied as a complement to trauma treatment, with a conversation with David Emerson of the Trauma Center.

Relieving Low Amounts Of Stress

A short guided meditation script for noticing and easing everyday, low-level stress by coming back to the body.

Relieving Stress With SBNRR (Stop, Breathe, Notice, Reflect & Respond)

Relieving Stress with SBNRR. In this meditation, we’ll practice cultivating a sense of ease, openness, and space even around difficult emotions.

9 Guided Meditation Scripts for Anxiety

7 Mindfulness Exercises for Relaxation. Exploring a variety of mindfulness exercises for relaxation can help us to truly feel what it means to be at peace.

Stress Relief With Breathing

Stress Relief with Breathing. This meditation helps to heighten our awareness of the effect of negative thinking. It explores the power of the breath…

9 Mindfulness Exercises for Anxiety

An estimated 264 million people live with some type of anxiety disorder. Mindfulness meditation can help. Here are 9 mindfulness exercises for anxiety.

• Jack Kornfield

How To Move Through Difficulties As A Transformative Initiation

A talk by Jack Kornfield on how transformative initiation can help us honor the importance of the difficulties that we experience and move through them.

The Best Of Mozart – Slowed Down @ 432Hz

Enjoy piano sonatas by Mozart, played slowly and tuned to A = 432 Hz, a tuning some listeners find calming.

Indian Flute Meditation Music

Indian flute music in Raag Ahir Bhairav, a Hindustani raga described as a morning raga, for early meditation and yoga.

Easy Yoga For Beginners

This 20-minute easy yoga workout is perfect for beginners who like a slow-paced exercise. Stretch & relax your entire body at the start or end of your day.

Calming Peaceful Music

Calming music and meditation by Jason Stephenson to help you relax, let go of stress and wind down for sleep.

What You Practice Grows Stronger

Dr. Shauna Shapiro, a clinical psychologist and professor at Santa Clara University, explains how mindfulness practice can help us change, in this TEDx talk.

Letting Go: Spoken Word Guided Visualization

A spoken word guided visualization by Jason Stephenson for letting go of old habits, thought patterns, and stories, in a gentle yet firm voice.

Secrets to Developing Emotional Mastery

Brendon Burchard talks about learning to handle our emotions and daily challenges more capably.

Ram Dass with Eckhart Tolle

Ram Dass and Eckhart Tolle in an open conversation about spiritual awakening and the transformation of consciousness, recorded in Maui in October 2011.

• Jack Kornfield

Guided Meditation with Jack Kornfield

A guided meditation of about 45 minutes with Jack Kornfield, in three parts: Buddha nature, forgiveness, and equanimity.

5 Ways to Overcome Adversity

Brendon Burchard shares five ideas for managing and leveraging adversity: have confidence, keep perspective, schedule action, ask for help, and honor the struggle.

20 minute Guided Mindfulness Exercise

A 20-minute guided mindfulness exercise, designed to help calm a busy mind at the end of the day, best done sitting upright.

Full Spectrum Mindfulness

A teaser from Integral Life on full spectrum mindfulness and the waking-up practice, and how it is interpreted in different ways.

Breath Awareness Meditation

Breath awareness meditation promotes physical & mental relaxation that can significantly reduce stress on the body and mind. Try our worksheet!

Transforming Anger

To begin Mindfulness Exercise on Transforming Anger, this worksheet will be useful to increase awareness and give ideas to bring about transformation.

Do You Cry? Is It Normal To Cry?

Eckhart Tolle says it’s normal to cry and talks about some of the things that make him cry. He also discusses joyful crying and what he calls dysfunctional crying.

Dealing With Anger, Resistance And Pessimism

How do we deal with anger, resistance and pessimism? Eckhart Tolle says the key is to catch what he calls the painbody at an early stage.

Detachment From Over-Thinking [Video]

Follow this guided mindfulness meditation to help quiet the mind and loosen the hold of over-thinking patterns.

Stress Eating

A mindfulness worksheet and journal for noticing when stress, rather than hunger, is driving the urge to eat, and for trying mindful eating as an alternative response.

Sky Gazing

A simple open-awareness practice: rest your gaze on the sky, let thoughts pass like clouds, and return to the breath whenever you like.

Loving-Kindness

Lovingkindness is a meditation technique that will enhance your feelings of unconditional love towards other people. It will also help you to love yourself.

Grounding Meditation

This Free Script for Grounding Meditation will help you to be in touch with your sensory experience at the present moment.

Emotional Awareness Meditation

Dealing with uncomfortable emotional states can be challenging. This emotional awareness meditation will help you increase mindfulness, resilience and calm.

Standing Up for Yourself

Standing up for yourself. In what ways did you push back in relationships, conversations, meetings? How did you feel? Discover now.

Basic Relaxation Meditation

A basic relaxation meditation that invites physical and mental relaxation, one area of the body at a time. It may help ease the effects of stress on the body and mind.

Working with a Nightmare

A free worksheet for exploring a nightmare image with curiosity, adapted from Stephen Aizenstat’s DreamTending. It complements, and does not replace, professional care.

Transforming Ill Will

A collection of 20 reminders and techniques for working with anger and ill will, with the aim of turning it toward goodwill. Free printable worksheet.

Tracking Your Mood

Tracking of your moods in a log can help you reflect on the factors and situations that affect your emotions. Do this a few times a day.

The Power of Music

Four short music practices (singing, playing, and mindful listening) with space to note how you feel before and after each. A comfort to try alongside, not instead of, professional care.

Being Positive

Being positive in your life with mindfulness exercises can help you to increase the ability to distinguish between positive or negative impact in life.

How Do I Respond To Another’s Pain-Body?

According to Eckhart Tolle, dealing with somebody else’s pain-body sometimes requires removing yourself for a while to allow the episode to subside.

Overcoming Anxious Thoughts

A free worksheet for working with anxious thoughts: estimate the real odds that what you fear will happen, then make a coping plan. It complements professional care for anxiety.

Problem Solving

In this mindfulness exercise, practice effective problem-solving in 2 steps: define your problem clearly and then brainstorm some possible solutions.

Managing and Mitigating Stress

Be a smart stress avoider. Get as creative as you can about managing or avoiding stress using our stress avoidance mindfulness worksheet.

Mindfulness Training as a Clinical Intervention

This review suggests that mindfulness training as a clinical intervention may be helpful in the treatment of chronic pain and several other disorders.

Nature Walks

This mindfulness worksheet describes a slow walk in a quiet natural area, with simple steps and safety notes, for giving a busy mind a rest.

Mindful Pause

Mindful pause exercise stresses the importance of taking a moment to stop what you are doing so you can check how you are feeling & become more focused.

Hand Warming Visualization

In this visualization, you imagine resting in a sunlit forest while a thermometer on your finger lets you notice whether your hands warm as you relax.

Breathing Into Tension

This mindfulness exercise provides guidance on the Breathing Into Stress Detox practice, which helps release tension and stress that builds up in the body.

The Sound of Nature

Three short listening practices for coming back to the sounds of nature: the sounds around you, a recorded nature track, and time outdoors.

Squeezing and Releasing Stress

This worksheet pairs tensing and releasing each part of the body with the breath, in the spirit of progressive muscle relaxation, with a note on skipping any area that hurts.

Meditation to Help Relieve Anxiety and Stress [Video]

A guided mindfulness meditation with Josh Wise that rests attention on the breath, for moments of stress or anxiety. It complements, and does not replace, professional care.

Humor Therapy

Laughter is often linked with lower stress and a better mood. This worksheet includes a short fake-laughter meditation you can try whenever you could use some humor.

Acts of Kindness

This written exercise from the We Cure practice looks at being a benefactor: someone who helps by giving time, love, or support to others.

Mindfulness of Laughter

A worksheet on laughter and enjoyment: what a genuine smile looks like, how lightness shows up in the body, and how to invite more of it into your day.

Boosting Mood with Music

Did you know that music is capable of altering your mood? In this mindfulness exercise, you’ll begin to learn how music can change the way that you feel.

Compassionately Questioning Negative Thoughts

In this mindfulness exercise, you notice a negative thought, question it with curiosity and compassion, and look for a more neutral or balanced thought to replace it.

Emotional Validation

Processing and understanding emotions can be difficult. This free mindfulness exercise for emotional validation can help you clarify and process them.

Cultivating Childlike Wonder

This mindfulness exercise on the Here and Now Pleasantness practice helps you to be more aware and present in your surroundings & turn off your auto-pilot.

Controlled Breathing

Controlled Breathing: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.

How Does it Feel to Lack a Sense of Boundaries?

This study discusses the phenomenological nature of the sense of boundaries (SB), based on a person’s experience with long-term mindfulness meditation.

Ken Wilber – Big Mind Meditation

Ken Wilber talks about Big Mind Meditation as the simple recognition of I-Amness, the awareness that is ever present.

Visualizing Ease

A free mindfulness worksheet that guides you through visualizing a stressful situation going well, a form of mental rehearsal, to build a sense of calm and ease.

Rating Anxiety in the Body

A mindfulness worksheet for noticing where anxiety shows up in the body, rating each sensation from 1 to 10, and breathing with it. It complements professional care.

Art Therapy

A mindfulness worksheet that invites you to explore and express what you feel through art, with reflection questions to begin. Download the PDF.

List of Top Stress Relief, Relaxation & Meditation Blogs

A note on a list of stress relief, relaxation and meditation blogs once published by mymassagechairs.com. The original list is no longer online.

• Dr. Dan Siegel

Wheel Of Awareness [Video]

Watch this video Wheel of Awareness by Dan Siegel – A dhamma talk on how to work with thoughts and emotions in our meditation practice. Wheel of Awareness, Published on Sep 17, 2013 A dhamma talk on how to work with thoughts and emotions in our meditation practice. “The truth of suffering is to be […]

The Nature of Aversion [Audio]

A talk by Kate Munding on our relationship with aversion in Buddhist practice, including a short inquiry into what we are resisting in our lives. The full transcript is below.

Working with Judgments

A two-page mindfulness worksheet on working with judgments: recognize and label them, give them space, and write for five minutes about one tied to regret and one tied to comparison.

Meditation For Stress & Anxiety Relief

A 10-minute guided meditation for stress and anxiety relief from Boho Beautiful, for a stressful day or when you are simply exhausted.

What Is Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction?

Since 1979, thousands of people have taken an eight-week course called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Here is what MBSR is, where it came from, and what a typical course includes.

Brain on Mindfulness: No More Questions, Your Honor

What chronic stress does to key brain regions, what mindfulness research says about it, and a simple exercise to notice your own thoughts.

• Tara Brach

Mindfulness of the Breath [Audio]

A talk on mindful breathing by Tara Brach: Letting this be a conscious pause, bring your presence and attention to right here. I invite you to bring a listening attention to the heart. Sometimes, we haven’t really visited or connected with our heart, in hours, days, or sometimes longer. So just check in and sense the […]

The Problem with Over-Friendly People

Friendliness is a great virtue, but over-friendliness can be a social disaster. If you are one of the over friendly people, this video is for you. Friendliness is a great virtue. Over-friendliness can be an unexpected problem. For gifts and more from The School of Life, visit our online shop: https://goo.gl/81j1IRJoin our exclusive mailing list: […]

The Gift of Rest

The Gift of Rest: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.

Exercising Mindfully

Exercising Mindfully: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.

What Are You Avoiding

Avoidance is a natural part of the stress response. It makes sense that we would want to avoid things that put us in danger.

What is Most Nurturing and Stressful for You

What is Most Nurturing and Stressful for You: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.

What are Your Feelings

What are Your Feelings: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.

Sensing Into Your Strongest Experiences

Sensing Into Your Strongest Experiences: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.

Noticing Intrusions

Practicing mindfulness and mindfulness exercises can help to alleviate these incessant worries and they can also teach you how to give your full and undivided attention to one thing at a time.

Measuring Your Presence

Measuring Your Presence: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.

Feeling Knocked Off Balance

Consider the different ways we experience life, the aspects of our being that help us function until they don't. A worksheet for noticing what knocks you off balance and what brings you back.

Creating Complexity

Creating Complexity: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.

Learning to Live More Positively

Learning to Live More Positively: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.

Practicing the Art of Resolving Conflicts

Practicing the Art of Resolving Conflicts: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.

Taking Care of Yourself

Simple ways to start taking care of yourself every day, from setting aside specific time slots to noticing what actually restores you.

Reducing Holiday Stress

Reducing Holiday Stress: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.

Monitoring Stress Reduction

Monitoring Stress Reduction: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.

How To Be Mindful of Physical Pain

How To Be Mindful of Physical Pain: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.

How to Untie Mental Knots

Now that you know how to untie mental knots, learn about the mental barriers. About 99 percent of the people who start marathons in the United States finish them.

Understanding Your Self-Pity

It is important to understand your own strengths & weaknesses. Sometimes, we see our circumstances and fall into a spiral of self-pity.

Sourcing Where Your Self-Judgment Comes From

Sourcing Where Your Self-Judgment Comes From: a free mindfulness worksheet to download as a PDF and work through at your own pace.