How to Start A Meditation Practice

When asked about the secret to finding personal happiness and gracefully navigating life’s pressures, every hot celebrity and entrepreneur has one word rolling off the tongue— meditation. It’s easy to see why so many people are clamoring to take up a meditation practice of their own: if it’s good enough for Oprah, it’s good enough for all of us.

And if you need extra motivation to ensure you carve out that sacred you-time, remind yourself that decades of scientific research prove the astounding physical, mental, and emotional health benefits from just six weeks of daily meditation—ranging from decreased fear, stress, and anxiety, improved focus and concentration, more restful sleep, heightened creativity, a deeper sense of well-being and compassion and improved personal relationships, including the all-important one with yourself. Who couldn’t use all of that in our lives?

The big perk of this sudden surge in interest is that it has never been easier to begin incorporating meditation into your daily life. Now, instead of having to trek up a mountain and take up residency in an ashram, you can easily access simple tools and techniques to build a meditation habit. Here, is everything you need to know before you start your meditation practice today.

Let Go of Expectations:

It’s a common misconception that meditating correctly means sitting with your eyes closed, having zero thoughts in your head, and suddenly reaching deep inner peace. In actuality, it’s kind of the opposite. If you are a human, that means you are wired to be a thinking machine. The average person thinks between 50,000-70,000 thoughts a day. So, it makes sense that when you close your eyes and take away all your outward distractions, the very first thing you will tune into is the fact that you think a lot. Be gentle with yourself. Remember that it will always get louder in your head before it gets quieter. Thoughts are part of the process, you are allowed to have them, and you should never feel pressured to “stop thinking.” Let go of the idea of a perfect meditation practice and give yourself (and your thoughts) a judgment-free break.

Traditional Meditation

There are many different forms of traditional meditation practices, but the most widely-accepted versions usually recommend 20 minutes of daily silent meditation while seated upright with a straight spine and eyes closed. During this 20 minutes, focus on a mantra (a sound frequency that you think in your head on repeat, like the universal “OM”) or focus on the feeling of your breath coming in and out of your body. Either of these act as an internal anchor when you catch yourself mentally drifting.

During any seated meditation, you can expect to go through the following scenario:

1. Thoughts pop up in your head — “I have to respond to that email first thing when I get to the office…Shit, my morning is packed with meetings…I wonder if there’s traffic…Should I stop at the grocery store tonight or just order in…”
2. Become aware of these thoughts — “Oh, I’m thinking!”
3. Don’t grip onto these thoughts. Instead, let them pass like clouds in the sky. Observe your thoughts passing without judgment— “That’s a thought, there’s another thought…”
4. Bring your focus and attention back to your anchor. Come back to your mantra or breath.
5. Repeat, repeat, repeat!

You can sit up in bed first thing in the morning either in silence or with some soft meditation music in the background. Set a timer for 20 minutes and settle in. As you try to concentrate on your anchor, allow yourself to run through the above 4-step process on repeat. If you want a helpful guiding hand, traditional meditation practices are available on most meditation apps. The Simple Habit 20-minute meditation is a great guided practice to try. And it also brings me to the concept of modern meditation…

Modern Meditation

While 20 minutes of daily seated meditation is incredibly beneficial to everyone, you don’t have to follow a strict traditional practice to start reaping the rewards. It’s important in our overstimulated world to learn how to unplug and go inward for a bit. And it’s arguably even more important to set realistic expectations that allow you to start integrating meditative techniques into your real life. 20-minutes sounds great but what’s the point if you don’t actually commit? Luckily, you can literally turn any physical moment or moment in your day into a living meditation—an opportunity to practice mindfulness while cultivating both inner and outer peace. The key is to simply remind yourself to pause, breathe, clear your head, and connect to the present moment—what is actually happening right now in this one place where your physical body is? You can turn showering, doing housework, being stuck in traffic on the freeway, and even challenging conversations into opportunities for active meditation and mindfulness.

Start With the Thing You’ll Actually Do:

No matter what the experts say, I always advise people to just “do the thing you’ll actually do.” This means meeting yourself exactly where you are. Tailor your practice to fit your life. No way you can do 20 minutes of meditation each morning? Start with five minutes. Aim for smaller increments but with consistency, remembering that it takes repetition to create any new habit. Absolutely no way you’ll get up five minutes earlier in the morning? Try meditating for five to 10 minutes during your lunch break or first thing when you get home from work. But you’ve got to start making dinner right when you get back from work? Then listen to a relaxing sleep meditation right before bed and get a much better night’s sleep! The point is, be honest and realistic with yourself and do what works for you. It’s your practice and you’re allowed to enjoy it, so do what feels good when it feels good and stick with that to start. You can always work your way up to longer and more frequent meditations when you feel ready and you have the time. Just remember that your best meditation will always be the one you actually do.

Christina Huntington is a transformational meditation teacher and writer based in Southern California who has been meditating her entire life. Christina currently teaches at Unplug Meditation and Wildwood Recovery Center in Los Angeles and leads private clients, group sessions, meditation for business, workshops, and retreats around the globe. With Canyon Tribe, Christina taught the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival’s first-ever meditation sessions in 2018. You can listen to Christina’s guided meditations on Simple Habit — a 5-minute app for busy people.