In my own quest for self-care, I find that mindfulness meditation is deeply helpful for de-stressing, clearing the mind, and inducing a relaxation response.  This tool is one of the many self-care rituals I recommend to my clients.  I wanted to share some free online resources with you.  This link is a series of free guided meditations from the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center , which includes several recorded audios of body scan, mindfulness meditation, relaxation meditation for sleep, and also in Spanish. I really like this 6 hour Tibetan Deep Meditation Music for relaxation on YouTube as well....it's nice to see so many accessible and free resources to help folks reduce stress and find calm in the busy of the day. 

In a world that is so fast-paced, which typically requires so much juggling of responsibility, it's vitality important we take time for ourselves to slow down and breathe. I found myself scurrying around this week, running from work commitments to family activities, etc.  I realized I needed to chill a bit and get centered. With all the great information out there on mindfulness meditation and the benefits for the mind, body, and emotions, it behooves us to make time for those practices which help us to de-stress. I found a great (free) app called Meditation Timer Pro that is super easy to use when you have a few minutes here or there for meditation. I also found some great links for relaxing meditation music off of YouTube that you can play on your smartphone while the Meditation Timer chimes/gongs at specific intervals that you pre-set. Good stuff! Happy Meditating!  Namaste,    Andrea .