How to Meditate for Calm

When lying down to meditate, support your body with a yoga mat or blanket on the floor. Bend your knees and place a bolster or rolled blanket under them to protect your lower back. 

An advantage of your whole body supported by this hard surface is that you can fully allow your muscles to relax. Slightly bend your knees and place a bolster or rolled blanket under them to protect your back. 

To keep alert (so you don't fall asleep), place your arms by your sides with palms facing upwards. If you have back or neck issues, try laying on your side for meditation. My Tip: You can even use a seat in your car that is reclined back as it also gives peace and quiet from family and work. If there is no other option, you can lie on a bed for meditation, but there is a higher risk of falling asleep. To prevent this, prop your body upright by placing pillows behind your back and head. A rolled blanket under your knees will protect your lower back.

Find a place for meditation where you can be with yourself for a short period of time without any distractions. This may be a corner of your room, outside in the sunshine, or even in your car with the seat reclining back.

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Guided Meditation:

• SoundCloud: Diaphragmatic Breathing (5min).

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Commit to spending this time each day to improve peace of mind.

Set a countdown timer on your phone (set to DND), committing to meditating for 5 min.

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How to Relax with Breathing.

During this meditation, we are using gentle diaphragmatic breaths to develop calm. 

To learn to breathe with your diaphragm, it is helpful to think of the movement of your lower belly as being like a pump for breathing. 

As you move the lower part of your belly outwards away from your body, air will naturally come in through your nose. As you slowly lower your belly again, air will naturally go back out through your nose. Using your belly as a pump will allow you to gradually reduce your breathing rate and develop an experience of calm.

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Meditation Instructions.

Meditating on a yoga mat on the floor allows you to relax deeply without falling asleep. Use a comfortable reclining chair or bed if you are uncomfortable on the floor. I recommend having three props for your meditation: a yoga mat or blanket, an optional pillow for your head, and a rolled-up blanket under your knees.

• Step 1: Lie down for meditation with your palms resting below your belly button so you can feel your breathing.
• Step 2: Begin by slowly raising your lower belly up to lift your palms and slowly lowering your belly back to lower your palms. Take five breath cycles in this way.
• Step 3: Once comfortable, slow down this belly movement to slow your breathing rate. When you find the right speed and effort, it will have a nice, calming effect. Take five slow in-and-out breaths to increase your feeling of calm.
• Step 4: After five breath cycles, allow breathing to happen naturally. Enjoy the relaxation these belly breaths create for the rest of your meditation.

During Days 4-5, your meditation remains the same, except you commit to 10 minutes and have a longer time to enjoy the relaxation that comes from this gentle breathing.

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Guided Meditation:

• SoundCloud: Diaphragmatic Breathing (10min).

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Set a timer on your phone and start by committing to meditating for 10 min.

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• Enjoy how nice it feels to relax.

During Days 6-7, your meditation remains the same, except you now lengthen your out-breath to increase the calm that comes from this gentle breathing.

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Guided Meditation:

• SoundCloud: Diaphragmatic Breathing (10min).

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Set a timer on your phone and start by committing to meditating for 10 min.

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These steps remain the same as Days 4-6:

• Step 1: Lie down for meditation with your palms resting below your belly button so you can feel your breathing.
• Step 2: Begin by slowly raising your lower belly to lift your palms and slowly lowering your belly back to lower your palms. Take five breath cycles this way, as in Days 1-4.

Days 7-9: Insert this extra step:

• Step 3: Taking 5 more in-and-out breath cycles, slightly slow down each out-breath by counting to 3 in line with each in-breath and to 5 in line with each out-breath until you feel the calming effect**. 
• Step 4: Allow your breathing to happen by itself now, simply lying still and enjoying the increased feeling of calm.

**Note: If slowing down your breathing to 5 seconds on each out-breath causes strain, lower this to a count of 4 or 3. There is no magic number here. The important part is that it feels comfortable and has a calming effect.

During Days 8-10, your meditation remains the same, except this time, you commit to 15 minutes. This gives you time to use the quiet period at the end of your meditation to develop insight into mind wandering and skill in returning to relaxation and calm when you notice it.

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Guided Meditation:

• SoundCloud: Diaphragmatic Breathing (15min).

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Set a timer on your phone, committing to meditating for 15 min.

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Your meditation remains the same as Days 6-7, except you increase your meditation time by 5 minutes so that you have an opportunity to develop your skill in being mindful when your mind wanders and returning to relaxation and calm when you notice it wandering.

After calming with your gentle breathing:

Whenever you notice your mind has wandered:

1. Towards a sound.
2. Towards thinking.
3. Or that you are restless.

Take three slow breaths in your belly, just as you did in your previous meditations, to help you relax and become more present in your body. Just here, now. It will make you feel more present, calm your mind's wandering, and strengthen your mindfulness.

During Days 11-14, your meditation remains the same, except this time you commit to 20 minutes to add the step of taking full breaths into your chest, to change stress breathing patterns, so that your body naturally rests in a relaxed state throughout the day.

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Guided Meditation:

• SoundCloud: Diaphragmatic Breathing (20min).

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Set a timer on your phone, committing to meditating for 20 min.

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These steps remain the same as Days 7-9:

• Step 1: Lie down for meditation with your palms resting below your belly button so you can feel your breathing.
• Step 2: Begin by slowly raising your lower belly to lift your palms and slowly lowering your belly back to lower your palms. Take five breath cycles this way, as in Days 1-4.
• Step 3: Taking 5 more in-and-out breath cycles, slightly slow down each out-breath by counting to 3 in line with each in-breath and to 5 in line with each out-breath until you feel the calming effect. 

On Days 11-14, Insert Step 4 here:

• Step 5: Allow your breathing to happen by itself now, simply lying still and enjoying the increased feeling of calm.

Days 11-14: Insert this extra step after taking your slow belly breaths in Step 3:

• Step 4: Once you have done 10 repetitions of breathing with your abdomen, the next stage is to learn to breathe from your abdomen up into your chest.

How to do it:

1. Bring one palm to the top of your chest, leave the other below your belly button.
2. Slowly breathe in from your belly button, extending your ribs out slightly. Allow the breath to fill your chest like a balloon.
3. At the end of the breath, allow your whole body to relax with a slow out-breath.
4. Repeat 10 times with slow, gentle breaths, free from strain.

You have done well to have reached this stage in your meditation and are no longer a beginner meditator. Your meditation skills developed on Days 11-14 and are equal to the first Meditation Skill in the MIDL Insight Meditation Course: Meditation Skill 00: Stress Breathing → Diaphragmatic Breathing.

You can continue meditation as you have over the last two weeks to lower stress and develop a daily meditation habit. This meditation is life-transforming. Or you can move on to the next meditation, which is practised sitting upright, to learn how to soften your body and mind to let go of things in daily life.

I encourage you to continue your daily meditation beyond these introductory meditations.

If you miss a day of meditation, it does not matter. Brush the dust off your meditation mat and start again.

And experience the benefits. 

After practising this simple but effective meditation, you may like to explore meditation further by following the complete insight meditation course on this website. You are now a more experienced meditator. 

After finishing this two-week course in calm, you can continue to deepen your meditation by starting Meditation Skill 01: Physical Restlessness → Body Relaxation, where you will learn to relax feelings of physical restlessness and turn them into relaxation and comfort in your body.

Question: Has anyone had any success using the MIDL system to address social anxiety? 

Stephen: It is nice to hear from you. Thank you for your question.

Yes, I had strong social anxiety and now am a public speaker. When I was at school, I spent most of my time hiding in the school library and then running home as fast as I could at the end of the day to avoid other people. One of the worst things that could ever happen was when I was asked to speak in front of the class. When I went out with friends, and this continued into my early thirties, they would go into the show, activity, pub, party etc. and I would stay outside and walk around for a few hours until they came out again. Meeting other people, having normal conversations, and making friends was awkward and waves of anxiety stopped me from living my life. This is what made me interested in Buddhist Insight Meditation.

My life changed with daily meditation and so can yours, if you are ready for change and don't want to play the social anxiety game anymore.

MIDL was designed based on my understanding of my own experience of anxiety and this is one of the reasons why the entry point into MIDL is retraining stress breathing patterns with daily slow diaphragmatic breathing in Meditation Skill 00: Stress Breathing → Diaphragmatic Breathing.

If you would like to start with a softer approach, starting with 5-minute guided meditations, I recommend this course on How to Meditate for Calm.

The first step in breaking this cycle is to create a place of safety for your mind and body. This means creating a small gap in the anxious cycle. This is done by committing do daily meditation, based on learning to breathe and relax with diaphragmatic breathing in your belly, to create a temporary gap in your stress breathing cycle. As you become comfortable with doing this for 5 minutes, you than gradually increase the time in your daily meditation, to 10 minutes and so on. Teaching your body to diaphragmatically breathe and the experience of relaxation and calm that comes from it will begin to transfer into your day. Once you understand how to breathe in this way, you can begin to interrupt the stress / social anxiety cycle during the day, by reengaging your diaphragm whenever you begin to stress breathe, with 5 slow breaths in your belly.

I understand this may be a big step, but you are welcome to join a weekly class and ask questions, you can keep your camera turned off, or you can ask questions in the MIDL sub-Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/midlmeditation/

I am here to share my experience if you would like it. To guide what is happening in your meditation it is helpful to describe what you are experiencing in your body and mind in daily life or when you are meditating, and in that way members of this community can share experience and help guide and support you on this journey to being anxiety free.

Question: Thank you for the thoughtful response. Im 30 years old now so I am certainly looking to address the situation. For a realistic perspective how long did it take you to see significant improvement in that area? 

Stephen: It took me several years because I had to work it out for myself. I am now 59, and when I deconditioned my social anxiety there was no internet or information in the form it is today.

I have since shared this with hundreds of people and have seen it take different lengths of time because people within themselves are complex. A lot of it depends on what is driving the anxiety. In general, I see a reduction in the levels of anxiety in 3-5 weeks if there is commitment to practising diaphragmatic breathing daily and understanding how to bring this relaxation into daily life. Generally 20min of this meditation, 1-2 times a day shows improvements following these instructions https://midlmeditation.com/meditation-skill-00 or https://midlmeditation.com/meditation-for-anxiety

If a person has a tendency toward obsessiveness (OCD) then it takes longer because their mind will obsess over controlling their breathing. Because of this they first need to learn to weaken their need to control breathing, before doing breathing pattern retraining. If you have OCD tendencies then we will need to take more gentle steps.

Anxiety is an alarm system that signifies that a person's mind and body is trying to protect them from danger. If you have had trauma in your life, this may be driving the social anxiety. We can still start in the same place, by creating a gap in the stress cycle by finding enjoyment in relaxing and diaphragmatic breathing, but will need to acknowledge that the anxiety is being driven by more than fear of being judged by others.

Since anxiety can be simple or complex, I recommend that you don't focus on 'how long' and rather focus on an accumulation of little success that are happening right now. You posting this question is a success, it has opened a doorway for you. You beginning a daily meditation to create gaps in the anxiety cycle is a success, even if it is only for 5 minutes in the beginning. As these little successes grow, so will your trust and confidence in yourself. This is the way a pathway leads somewhere, one paver at a time.