Independent Reviews of Relaxation Audio
Find good relaxation audio, easily
This non-profit guide exists simply to help you quickly find all sorts of relaxation audio, from guided relaxations to guided meditation and relaxation/ambient radio. As far as I know, there's nothing else quite like it on the web.
It reviews lots of guided relaxation CDs & mp3s, all with audio clips and prices so in one place you can compare a whole load of competing items, just as you would on any other product review site. However, there are no ads to distract, or commissions taken to bias my judgment - you may of course not like what I like but I have tried to focus on relaxations I know that others have enjoyed too. Guided meditations are covered in just the same way.
Relaxation at work
There are now a fair few free online guided relaxations available and I review the best ones of these I've found, though to be honest the paid-for ones are generally quite a lot better. However, most are quite short and ideal to use for a quick relaxation in the office. You may also find the relaxation radio helpful at work too, which streams without ads, as do the tracks/albums reviewed in the music section.
Your host
Relaxation Reviews was set up and is run by Simon McGrath (that's me in the photo). I began using guided relaxation and meditations in 1998 as they can be very helpful with my illness - ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - but I found it hard to find good ones and often bought recordings that I only played a couple of times. What I really wanted to find was something like the book review page of a magazine, that would show me where to find relaxations and give some pointers as to what they were like. Unfortunately nothing like that existed at the time, so I set up this web site.
History
The site began life in 1999 as a magazine article about where to buy relaxations on audio tape (remember them?). Since then it's expanded to cover meditations, relaxation music, online relaxations and ambient radio: any form of audio that can help you (and me) to relax. Until recently the site existed as Calming.org, but unfortunately due to a renewal blunder I lost the domain name and with it most of my traffic. The site has now been completely revamped and is hopefully more user-friendly too.
Non-profit
This site doesn't make any money at all; it is simply set up to help people find good relaxations on the web. I only post reviews on downloads/CDs that I think are very good, are likely to appeal to many people and are reasonably priced. Special thanks go to fountain crafters for kindly donating the running costs of this site for 2008/9. (Fountain crafters offer a variety of water fountains.)
* Special deals * As a special offer, you can now buy Andrew Johnson's Deep Relaxation CD direct from my site, but please note that I make no money from this and the site remains non-profit - instead, Andrew has cut the price from £12.99 to £10 inc. p&p. I've also approached a couple of other sellers with good relaxations that I thought were a bit too expensive, and they have agreed to offer reduced prices to visitors to this site. It's one of the benefits of being a non-profit!
Price/value is a common reason relaxations don't make this site (why include a good relaxation CD costing £15 when there are many equally good relaxation CDs for nearer £10, or less as a download?). Delivery costs are given too as some prices include shipping while some sites don't give the shipping cost until check out. However, the growth of downloads has simplified things recently. I have tried to identify the cheapest supplier for each recording that I recommend, but again, if you know of a cheaper supplier then please let me know. Price and availability are checked regularly.
If you don't like any of the downloads, CDs or audio files I recommend then please tell me!, any suggestions on how to improve Relaxation Reviews will also be welcomed. Thanks.
best wishes
Simon
Contact
Simon McGrath
Email: calming @ relaxationreviews.org
Address: Wrekin, Prospect Road, Monmouth NP25 3SZ, UK