Following the release of my new meditation soundscapes, I'm back in the studio working on some minimal ambient yoga meditation music. The first piece is being checked for mastering as I type, it's a simple collection of tibetan singing bowls and soft copper wind chimes. I'm particularly happy with the sound of the chimes, they make me feel like packing up work for the day and sitting under a tree with a book.

Photo by shotyoudown

After converting the clips to mp3s and copying and pasting HTML code for the audio players for over three hours I felt tired and ungrounded, and therefore in need of some of my own medicine.

I decided to take care of myself by doing the Healing Energy meditation, it's one of my favourite qigong based meditations. I love the active self-care feel of it and the way it perks me up and relaxes me all at the same time.

There are two Qigong based meditations available in the Inner Calm Audio Store, 5 Finger Qigong (this link goes to a free download of the complete meditation) is relaxing and good for anxiety relief and the Healing Energy Meditation is good for recharging and releasing tension.

I was recently asked to make some yoga and meditation music, the request was for something unobtrusive and about 15 minutes long, so that each piece could last the duration of one medium session. I thought about it for a while and decided that I would focus on recording soundscapes similar to those I put together for HypnoDreams though these are even more minimal and leaning towards a Brian Eno inspired sound. 

So far, I've released three new titles, but I had so much fun making them that I will be making more.

Forest Temple was the first completed recording and I think it may be my favourite you can read more & listen to sample here >

Foreest Temple - yoga meditation music

We took a trip to Guru Soundz last week with the intention of picking up a sarod for my daughter. She's doing so well with her guitar practice that my inner Indian was keen to see her pick up an ethnic string instrument too. No pressure, just for fun and something to play along on when we meet with friends for kirtan.

So we headed off for beautiful Barking and, one slightly stressful drive later, found ourselves sitting with Rani the store's manager trying out an exotic looking sarod. We both tried to play it but, beautiful though it sounds in the hands of a master, we were finding it hard to make a good sound. The sarod is a surprisingly heavy instrument and it requires sliding your nail along the string to make the evocative sound I've come to love. We both found it tricky and that the string quickly cut into our nails; Rani suggested my daughter try a sitar, and with the first gentle strum of those resonant strings my husband declared "now that's a sound I love" Rati was beaming and tentatively twanging away, so I left her to experiment while I rummaged through a box of bansuri flutes.

Two hours later we left with a gorgeous sitar, a tuition DVD and an armful of flutes that I could not leave behind.

A week on I am surprised to find myself playing the sitar as much as the flutes. I love it, despite the humiliation of living with an 11 year old who can run through a series of alankaras (ornaments based on a scale) in 10 minutes that took me over an hour to learn!

Photo by retorta_net

There are so many kinds of music - country western, classical, eastern, rap, pop, hip hop, rock and roll, soul...what kind of music are you listening to, and how is it affecting your level of stress?

Music moves us - listening to a sad song can make us feel melancholy, soft jazz piano can calm and soothe us, and rock can make us feel strong, excited, even free. Music has been proven to speed healing, is used in malls to put us in the mood to buy, in churches for inspiration and much more. So can you use music to influence your mood and lower your stress in your daily life? Absolutely.

First, consider your general mood. Are you normally stressed, happy, positive, sad, angry, fearful, even shy? Are there consistent times in your life that you would like to change your mood - maybe the drive home from work, or getting up in the morning, or maybe you stress at night, laying in bed, tossing and turning?

There's nothing quite like the sound of the flute to relax your mind and lighten your mood. From the Japanese shakuhachi, to India's bansuri, flute song has echoed around our planet for thousands of years evoking tranquillity and peace in all who would sit a while and listen.

Introducing Udana: flute music for relaxation

In the spirit of the ancient meditative tradition of the flute, Udana is a series of free flowing improvisations that capture the light and mobile tones of traditional bamboo flutes as they weave through  soundscapes from around the world.

It can be easily observed that music has an effect on the senses. Music effects the body and the brain in various ways.

There has been some scientific research in recent times to find out the relationship between music and intelligence. Even though it seems fairly obvious that music has an effect on the brain cells themselves and that listening some forms of music, especially western and Indian classical can increase intelligence, science, as always has been trying to seek a proof of this phenomenon.

Researchers believe that certain types of musical actually creates new neural pathways in the brain. That means that the brain can function in a different filed than that of memory alone. After listening to classical music, adults can do certain spatial tasks more quickly, such as putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

The new Inner Calm audio store went live yesterday and so far the  Alpha Brain Audio downloads are the best sellers with our Guided Meditations a close second. We have some exciting new additions planned, including an audio series on Beating Emotional Eating - details will be announced in our newsletter.

5 Finger Qigong Anxiety Relief Video

This simple sitting qigong meditation is a mindfulness exercise that focuses on the breath along with basic hand postures, it's very effective for evoking calm and reducing anxiety.

5 Finger Qigong

More than four years ago Time magazine reported over ten million Americans meditate and since then the number has constantly grown. Once thought of as a ritual performed by men who shaved their heads, wore long robes and lived in a mountain cave, this mind quieting, stress relieving natural self-healing practice is becoming so commonplace that corporations such as Deutsche Bank, Google and Hughes Aircraft recognize the intuitive powers of it and offer meditation classes to their employees.

In addition, the scientific community has stepped up to the plate and is offering factual data to support many of the proclaimed benefits of meditation. Studies on the effects meditation has on the brain and body have been going on for quite some time at institutions such as the Brain Imaging Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale and the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine at Harvard Medical School.