I was walking down the hallway in the hospital ward; as I passed the doctor and the nurse standing in the hallway I heard my name: “Zofia should go there,” the nurse said. I stopped and asked why they had mentioned my name. “Because you have a very special way with people, you are good with them,” the nurse promptly explained. She told me that the patient in the room across the hallway was experiencing terrible post-surgical anxiety. I accepted the compliment with a smile and a sincere “Thank you”. It was not normally in my role to receive instructions directly from a nurse or a doctor, but I knew both of them personally, having worked on this floor for a few years already and knowing the entire team. I had some extra time and recalled that we are client-centered care, without any hesitation I walked into the patient’s room. He was a middle-aged gentleman totally overwhelmed by anxiety. I sat by his bedside and introduced myself. I asked a few simple general questions, such as how long he had been in the hospital, and how the entire experience had been for him. I explained to him that his own nurse and doctor had asked me to meet him, thinking perhaps I could help. Throughout my conversation with this patient, I used a calm, gentle voice, and I was as sincere and truthful as I could be. I asked him if he would be willing to follow my guidance, which I believed would help him to relax, and he eagerly agreed. In my gentlest voice I asked him to pay attention to his feet: were they heavy? Were they pressing against the hospital bed? How did the blanket over his legs feel? Was it heavy or light? Where were the pressure points where the blanket felt the heaviest; where was it gently touching his skin? How did the upper parts of his legs feel? Were they still, relaxed or restless? I continued directing his attention from his feet and legs to his torso, hands, and arms, gradually scanning the sensations throughout his body. Every time I asked the patient a question, I gave him time to become aware of the sensations in his body. It was only a short while into this exercise when I noticed his eyes were closed and before I knew it, his breathing had calmed and in less than five minutes he had fallen asleep. I quietly left the room. As I came closer to the nurse and doctor still standing in that hallway, I quietly said, “Mission accomplished, the patient is sleeping”. They were both surprised. “How did you know what to do with him?” they asked. “It is a secret,” I jokingly replied. You see, like that man, I had days when I experienced full-blown anxiety, which includes, among many other symptoms, the inability to swallow. For those days I have learned a technique to quiet and derail the crazy thought processes in my mind, by simply paying attention to my breathing or by concentrating on the sensations my body was experiencing at that given moment. These techniques have helped me immensely. They eased my fear and eventually totally freed me from any physical symptoms of anxiety. I have never needed to use one antidepressant or sleeping pill. I practiced sleeping will 😉 Although I am fully aware that some people need medication to help them to be functional in their lives, I also strongly believe that many of us could benefit from simple techniques like the one I used with the patient that day. If we took time to teach people how to get out of the loop of their frenzied thoughts, there