What's Inside Anchored — And Why I Built It This Way

My post content

Seven years ago I started recording a short calming session every morning. I've not missed a day since. That library now runs to more than 2,300 sessions, and for a long time the honest problem was that it lived in a podcast app — sitting between adverts for car insurance and whatever else the feed decided to serve you.

Anchored is that library, in one quiet place, built the way it should have been from the start. It's free on the App Store now, with Android following in September.

What's actually in it

The panic attack section opens straight into a guided session. No menus, no scrolling, no list of 2,300 things to pick from. If you've ever tried to make a decision in the middle of a panic attack you'll know why that matters — the choosing is part of what makes it worse.

Guided breathing that moves with my voice rather than asking you to watch a circle and listen separately. It's one thing, not two.

An ambient night light in any colour you like, for the 3am wake-ups when a dark room feels too big.

And the whole searchable library — sleep, anxiety, confidence, mornings, letting go — with a new session added every single day, as always.

Books at Bedtime

This is the part I'm most pleased with, and the part that's going to grow the most from here.

Books at Bedtime is full-length classic literature, read slowly, a chapter at a time. Sherlock Holmes. Alice in Wonderland. The Time Machine. Not abridged, not dramatised — just read, at a pace designed for falling asleep to rather than following.

There's a reason this works when counting sheep doesn't. A story occupies the part of your mind that would otherwise be rehearsing tomorrow's worries, but a familiar, gentle one makes no demand on you. If you drift off in chapter four and wake up in chapter six, nothing is lost. That's the point.

New chapters go up every week, and the collection is growing steadily. If you use nothing else in the app, use this one.

On the free version, and the paid one

Anchored is free, and the free version is genuinely usable — the full panic attack category, all the breathing tools, the night light, a book chapter, and four sessions a day. No account, no sign-up, not even an email address.

It carries adverts, the same as the podcast does. They pay for the hosting, and the hosting is what keeps it free for someone who can't pay.

If you'd rather not hear them, premium is $5.99 a month, and it does two things worth having. It removes the ads entirely. And it lets you download the whole library to your phone, so it plays with no signal at all — on the Underground, on a plane, in the dead spots on the A39. The commute is where a lot of people tell me their anxiety actually shows up, and it's exactly where the signal drops.

There's no streak in this app. Nothing turns red if you skip a day. Find it, use it, then move on.

Download Anchored free on the App Store · More about the app

Anchored provides relaxation and wellness content and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. If you are in crisis, please contact your local emergency services or a crisis helpline.