Before I started my study of Buddhism and meditation, I suffered greatly from anxiety. Throughout my life, medication was my best friend when dealing with anxiety. I’m not going to tell you that you can toss your anti-anxiety or anti-depression medication away that would be wrong. What I can tell you is my Doctors all noticed a marked improvement in how my anxiety diminished over the years. I associate this improvement with meditation and an overall calm I now enjoy naturally every day.

Many meditations I didn’t find particularly useful when I could feel the anxiety starting to creep upon me, an example would be during turbulence on an airplane. I’ve traveled a ton in my life, but I still get anxiety when a flight hits some bumps in the air. Often, the subtle “breathing meditations” of Vipassana just won’t hold my attention well enough. So I started to turn to what I call the “4-Square Meditation,” this is how you do it:

• Sit in as comfortable position as possible
• Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths

We are going to focus on our breath as well as a counting routine

• Take a deep breath and let the breath take as long as it takes you to count to four by saying the following in your mind: “1-one thousand, 2-one thousand, 3-one thousand, 4-one thousand.”
• Then hold that breath for the same count of four as above
• Next exhale slowly to the same count of four as above

You might notice your body rushing to get rid of the air, it’s ok if you have to exhale quickly, your pulse and blood pressure will soon slow and you will be able to hold the count

• Now, after exhaling, hold that for the same four count as before, then start to take your inhalation.
• Repeat, inhale for four seconds, then hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, and then hold the lack of air in your lungs for four seconds.

Repeat this pattern until you feel you have gained control back, I recommend keeping it up and keeping your focus on the breath and counting for as long as you want.

Often, when I do this meditation I will go much longer in time than I think I do. Once on a bumpy flight from Idaho to Oregon I did this the whole flight and really didn’t realize I had done it, and done it without anxiety.

I can’t promise you the anxiety will go away but what I can promise is your ability to see it and be able to head it off, and mellow it out will come with meditation practice.

We would love to hear about your experience with this meditation, feel free to drop us a note or post a comment on how it worked.