Meditation is another valuable tool for managing or decreasing your stress. The whole goal of meditation is to calm the mind and free your self from the mental clutter and emotional baggage that can cloud your judgment and perception of the events in your life. With the hectic pace of everyday life, it’s easy to lose touch with who we fundamentally are, what matters to us most, and sometimes even the source of our discontent. You can think of it as “unplugging” yourself in order to create some space and distance to regain perception.

A lot of people think that meditation is hard to do and can’t imagine carving out a long stretch of time where they are doing basically nothing. But it’s in the “being” not the “doing” we can re-connect with ourselves and tap into our intuition. That’s where the answers within us lie, but before we can access them we have to quiet down and eliminate all the distracting noises in our heads. It’s also the best way to achieve the peace of mind that you need to get a restful sleep.

Meditation can take on a lot of different forms and doesn’t necessarily have to take a long time. You can take a class or find a good CD with guided meditations to help you get in the right frame of mind and begin practicing how to let go. One of my favorites is a box set by Sharon Salzberg called (fittingly) Unplug. It has 2 CDs with guided meditations, a companion guidebook and 32 contemplation cards. You can get a copy at Amazon.com.

Other favorites are meditation CDs from Shakti Gawain, author of Creative Visualization and Living In the Light. For some free, guided meditations you can download try Debbie Ford’s site at http://www.debbieford.com/index.php?cPath=14_20#meditations. For a larger selection you can purchase and download try Audible.com.