Meditation · Anxiety
Making Room for Worry
Priya Raman · 13 min
13:00
remaining
What to do, minute by minute
1. Settle in
0:00–2:36Sit or lie down somewhere you won't be disturbed. Let your shoulders drop, close your eyes or soften your gaze, and take three slow breaths.
2. Follow the breath
2:36–5:12Breathe in for a count of four, out for a count of six. Let the out-breath be longer than the in-breath — that's what calms the nervous system.
3. Scan and release
5:12–7:48Move your attention slowly from your jaw to your shoulders, hands, belly and legs. Wherever you find tension, breathe into it and let it go.
4. Rest in stillness
7:48–10:24Stop steering. Let thoughts come and go like passing traffic — when you notice you've wandered off, that noticing is the practice. Return to the breath.
5. Come back gently
10:24–13:00Deepen your breath, wiggle your fingers and toes, and open your eyes slowly. Carry a little of this quiet into whatever comes next.
Instead of pushing worry away, giving it a chair.
Name the worry once, plainly, as if telling a friend. Notice where it lives in the body — throat, chest, stomach. Breathe around it rather than into it, the way water moves around a stone. You are not agreeing with the worry. You are only stopping the fight with it.