Meditation

Meditation = Ahhhhhhh

Mediation is one of the most effective ways to relieve stress. You could join a meditation or yoga club, do a short course, watch YouTube or follow the guide I have below. This guide can be remembered or it would be great to record it on your phone to listen to before you go to bed.

Steps:

1. Find a comfortable space on the floor/bed where you can lie flat on your back with your legs and arms uncrossed, eyes closed and not be touching other students.

2. Record this on your phone or a say in your minds ear in a soft comforting tone, that we are going to go on a journey to a place where we all like to be. A very relaxed place.

Now recite the following things (do not say what is in brackets). Keep an eye on the time and use pauses:

1. As you lie there start to notice that yes, you are in fact breathing.

2. Start to focus on your breaths and think in (breath in) and out (breath out).

3. (Pause for a few seconds and focus on breathing).

4. I want you to imagine that you are lying on the sand at the beach.

5. You can feel the soft warm sand underneath you. You can feel the beautiful warm sun on your face.

6. If you listen you can hear the gentle sound of the waves crashing against the shore, and feel a nice cool breeze brushing your face.

7. Enjoy this feeling.

8. Now what I want you to do is to think about your toes and feet. I want you to tense up your toes and feet screw up the muscles. Tense, tense, tense, tense and relax.

9. Now move up to your calf muscles. Tense, tense, tense, tense and relax.

10. As you relax your calves feel the tension totally run out of the bottom of your feet.

11. Focus on your upper legs. Tense, tense, tense, tense and relax.

12. Move to your tummy now. Tense, tense, tense, tense and relax.

13. Keep feeling all that tension just run away as you relax.

14. Focus on your chest and back muscles now: tense, tense, tense, tense and relax.

15. Now your upper arms and your hands squeeze them as tight as you can go: tense, tense, tense, tense and relax.

16. Finally move up to your face. Screw up your face, head and neck muscles go: tense, tense, tense, tense and relax.

17. Now return to your breathing, focus on it.

18. You are feeling very calm and very relaxed. You may feel like you have started to slide deeper and deeper into the sand at the beach.

19. If you look up you can see the hole that your body has left in the sand up to the surface.

20. Now that we feel calm and relaxed we are going to leave this place and go somewhere where we also feel calm and relaxed.

21. Where is this place? Can you see it? It might be a pond, a field or somewhere you would go as a child.

22. I want you to remember this place because you can always come back here any time you like.

23. Take a moment and just really enjoy being in this place.

24. (Pause for 1 minute to allow the feeling to sink in).

25. We are now going to leave this wonderful place and I want you to imagine you are standing at the entry to an elevator. You climb into the elevator and it starts to go down from floor to floor, further and further, you can feel yourself falling through the floor as the elevator plunges deeper and deeper into the earth.

26. The elevator eases to a halt and you walk out to find yourself standing at the top of a set of stairs.

27. You gracefully and slowly start walking down these stairs one at a time and each time stepping down lower and lower down the flight.

28. At the bottom of the stairs you see a door and you walk through.

29. You now find yourself in your bedroom at home. Look around, you can see your bed, your walls, pictures and your desk.

30. Imagine you are sitting at your desk. You have a pile of books and notes and you are studying for an exam. You have got a lot of work to do and the exam is tomorrow. You find that you are feeling very calm and confident about the task at hand.

31. You study one thing at a time. You are focused on each thing that you study and your mind does not wander to other areas of study. You know that you have a job to do and that you must start at the beginning.

32. You continue to study and as you do you feel surprised at the ease with which information just seems to stick in your mind.

33. It is now the end of your study time and you feel very proud of the effort you have put in to making yourself a successful student and you go to bed and get a good restful nights sleep before your exam.

34. It is now exam time and you are sitting out side the exam room.

35. You feel calm and relaxed and very confident about the exam you are about to complete.

36. As you sit down, the examiner starts reading time and you begin to read your questions.

37. As you read each question you are pleased to find that each question makes total sense to you and you are able to work out exactly what the examiner is asking.

38. You move from question to question. Each time it is the same, the question makes sense and you know what the examiner is looking for.

39. As you start to write you find that the information that you need just flows straight out of your mind and onto the page.

40. You feel a seamless link between your mind and your hand.

41. As your exam ends you find that you are very happy with your effort and you have a little smile because you know everything is going to be OK.

42. (Pause for about 10 seconds)

43. I want you to remember that feeling of joy in an exam because this is how you will feel from now on. Every time you study or complete a test or an exam you will feel this same sense of well being and peace with your efforts.

44. Focus back on your breathing and slowly start to become more aware of the room you're breathing in and the world here and now.

45. When you're ready open your eyes.