Finding free meditation music online can seem like an uphill struggle.

So many sites promise free music but when you get to them, all you find is a snippet that lasts for a few seconds. Or, worse still, a link to an illegal download site that's robbing the music's owner of their royalties and puts a nasty dent in your karma quotient for the day.

The trouble with looking for free meditation music is that the author needs some money (at least some of the time) so that they can live. Sure, they can give out free samples of their music in the hope that you will like it enough to spend some money with them. But that strategy doesn't always work.

That's why a lot of the samples of free meditation music that you come across are just that. Samples. Maybe the first 30 or 60 seconds of a track. Or maybe more of the track but set to mono, AM radio quality.

Which isn't usually good enough if you want to sit back, put on a track and relax for half an hour.

If you're creative, you can use one of the excellent music programs to design your own music. Personally, I find that too stressful to even contemplate. But you may find that the task of creating some music actually helps you to relax.

If creating your own music doesn't sound like fun then you'll need to search out some tracks.

Finally, take a listen to some of your old records or CDs. Sometimes an artist will put an instrumental track onto an album and it could be just what you're looking for.