3 Guided Meditations To Help Take Your Mind Out Of Election Panic Mode

In this Inner Smile meditation, doctor of oriental medicine and author of FOCUS: Bringing Time, Energy, and Money Into Flow Pedram Shojai, OMD, begins by getting the body relaxed using deep diaphragmatic breathing. This meditation is very visual, involving picturing a smiling face emanating all throughout your body bringing positive energy to every cell.

Here, reiki master Serena Poon offers a brief visualization, a breathwork technique, and affirmations, that all come together for a quick grounding practice that can help get you out of an anxious funk. The visualization involves first physically moving locations, to help bring you into a literal new space, before visualizing something soothing, comforting, or protective.

"I like to imagine I'm enveloped in a bubble or aura of bright white light from Source," Poon tells mbg. Then, you'll do some rounds of box breathing, a simple breathwork where you inhale for four counts, hold for four, exhale for four, and hold again for four breaths. This activates your parasympathetic nervous system.

In this meditation, it's all about dropping into your heart center. According to Jessie May Wolfe, speaker and founder of HeartRise Movement, "Your heart is the great equalizer. Your heart knows how to recalibrate you." Everything is energy—including anxiety—she reminds us. And when we learn to listen to it, lean in to it, and feel, heal, harness, and repurpose it, we can transform our anxiety.

Emotion is energy in motion, and in this meditation, Wolfe guides you to invite the fear and anxiety to be moved through as your fuel. "It can actually be your guide and your grounding within," she says. "Learning how to anchor within is key in these uncertain times—and setting our own natural rhythm with the heart helps to regulate and recalibrate us."