Body Scan Meditation to Calm Your Nervous System

Your shoulders are up by your ears again and you didn't notice until they started to ache. The stress of the day settles into your body long before you get a chance to deal with it, and a two-minute breathing break never quite reaches it.

Press play, lie down or sit back, and a kind, steady voice walks you slowly through your whole body for a full twenty minutes. Each of the twelve guided body scan sessions takes its own route, from the feet upward one time, from the crown downward the next, and rests your attention on a different anchor such as warmth, weight, the breath, or the simple contact of your body with the floor. When your mind wanders, you are gently invited back with no fuss at all.

By the end you feel heavier in a good way, your jaw loose and your breath low and easy, ready to return to the day with a quieter nervous system. Pick any session and give yourself the twenty minutes.