Mindfulness of Sounds (Anchoring on Sounds)

Traditional advice is to anchor the attention on the breath, but the breath is not a neutral or supportive place for many. If you've tried meditation before and found that focusing on your breath made you feel more stressed than calmer, you're not doing it wrong. When you're stressed, your breath already speeds up and gets shallow as part of your body's stress response, and paying close attention to that can make you more aware of it, sometimes feeding the stress instead of easing it. Breath can also be a stressful place to focus due to past trauma.

The good news is that, when practicing mindfulness meditation, the object of attention does not have to be the breath.

In this free 10-minute guided meditation, we take sounds as the object of attention, as what anchors you in the present moment.

Listen deeply to the sounds around you, and notice the calming effects on your body and nervous systems. In addition to being a grounding meditation and helping complete the stress cycle, anchoring on sounds will help you build focus and steadiness, when practiced regularly.

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