You might have heard about the benefits of meditating and read stories on how meditation changed the lives of people and you’ve decided that it’s time you gave it a try. In theory that’s all fine, but for most of us translating theory into practice can be intimidating.

Where to start? Where to sit? How to sit? What to do? Some listen to music and some don’t, which is better? There are tons of guided meditations out there, are they any good? Should I say some mantra or it is Ok just to focus on my breath? Most articles you read are ambiguous and tell you that you can do whatever you like, and that doesn’t help much when you are starting out. My goal with this guide was to give you a simple introduction on how to start up a meditation practice and answer some of the most basic questions around meditation.

In This Post :

• SOME GENERAL THOUGHTS ON MEDITATION
• 7 SPECIFIC TIPS TO MEDITATE EFFICIENCTLY AS A BEGINNER
• SIMPLE MEDITATION EXERCISE FOR BEGINNERS
• CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Takeaway :

WHAT MEDITATION IS AND WHAT MEDITATION ISN’T

Meditation is a concept surrounded by lots of myths and misconceptions so before starting the practice it is usefull to clarify some of the rumors around meditation.

• Awareness developed through meditation is a skill you develop through mental training and there isn’t anything inherently spiritualistic or religious in it. Meditation is a practice you do to develop a certain quality of your mind, the ability to be aware and in this sense it is a simple form of training similar to any training you do to the physical body. Meditation has many dimensions and on some advanced levels it can be used in spiritual or religious context but as a basic practice it is just a form of mental training.
• Meditation is not a one time act but a process. As a beginner meditator you will want to work out your “attention muscle” so to say. You have to experience the feeling of being alert in a meditative state of mind again and again for the changes to happen. As most skills are acquired through repetition so is the basic skill to freely direct your attention acquired through a regular meditation practice.
• Meditation is not a quick fix for anxiety if you are a beginner. Many people think that meditation can be used as an occasional quick fix when you are in challenging times, or when panic attacks are kicking in. If you haven’t practiced in quite times, the rough times will be very challenging to meditate in. When you are facing problems your mind is usually very active, it feels like an action movie going on inside and you won’t have the necessary skill to calm that momentum down. Most probably you’ll get more stressed when you want to sit calm and do nothing. It is best to do a short guided relaxation meditation, or listen to music and exercise to get that chemistry out of your system. Meditation can help only when practiced consistently.
• The purpose of meditation is training your attention and not relaxation. Relaxation is a byproduct of meditation and not the purpose of it. You’ll feel relaxed and tired after running for 20 minutes but that isn’t necessarily the primary purpose for running. Less stress, deeper relaxation and less anxiety are common basic benefits of meditation but that isn’t the main thing. You reach that relaxation by developing better ability to understand and cope with your own thought processes. Some guided meditations with music can do a great job for relaxation but it is advisable to try some meditation practices where you are actively training your mind.
• Meditation isn’t about stopping thoughts. Some parts of your mind are programmed to translate impulses, collect and digest information and on this level you really don’t want those parts to stop doing their job. There are however other parts of your mind that aren’t as automatic as the ones mentioned before and you can develop abilities to become more aware of your mental workings. You can become the director of the scenes and stories rather than simply being the kid in the cinema watching the show.

AWARNESS AND THE MIND

Meditation is a multi dimensional practice and although all levels of meditation sort of look the same from outside there are huge differences in what goes on inside. That is why it is hard to understand where to start. The best way to start is to familiarize yourself with some of the basic meditation techniques and move on to more complex levels when you are confident about what you are doing.

The mind is an amazing and complex system and for the beginning of our lifetimes we are mostly helped by it’s automatic processes. Most of what goes on in our mind is automatic in the sense that we are involved in it like an actor in a movie. And that’s good because we don’t know better at that stage. We have to have a database of all kinds of experiences, events, feelings, etc. At this stage the stories are formed outside of us ( or at least that is how it feels) and we are dragged by them, by their momentum.

Meditation won’t stop these thoughts but it will allow us to realize that we can step out of the scene. Going with the movie example this would be like stepping out of the scene and letting the scene unfold, but without our direct, active involvement. As an actor we would just step out of the current sequence and just watch it from the side as it passes by in front of us. Your thought processes are forming little stories, scenes for you and the first step is to step out and shift the way you relate to these thoughts. It is a feeling of relief when you realize that you can let whole stories just pass you by without being “dragged” by their momentum, without being emotionally affected.

A more advanced but still basic level of meditating is when you are becoming alert and attentive while these scenes are going on like a movie. You begin to realize that a lot what you think is like watching a “movie” because basically you are sitting and breathing here and what you think is only in your head. It is only in your mind that you are fighting your enemies, building your dream house, talking to your ex or picking flowers with your loved one or whatever other thought just came to you. These are stories that run like little movies in our mind and they cause the system to react to these stories with emotions. The more you are becoming practiced to be aware of your present moment the better you’ll understand your thought processes and the better you can cope with emotional reactions and feelings.

Meditation in this sense can free you from being a slave of automatic thinking processes and unwanted emotional reactions and become a capable decision maker in your own life. Developing your mental skills is empowering even if you’ll never get involved in the other, more transcendental aspects of meditating.

7 SPECIFIC TIPS TO MEDITATE EFFICIENCTLY AS A BEGINNER

1. Start small -it is best to begin with less than 10 minutes when you just want to try out what meditation is or when are just starting a meditation practice. If you go for 30/60/90 minutes meditations as a beginner you will most probably get frustrated with the experience. It’s like running a marathon without any practice. Let yourself ease into it. There are 3-5 minutes guided meditations to give a taste of the experience. I recommend starting with seven minutes, do it for a week than increase it to ten minutes and slowly build the practice up to about 20 minutes a day.
2. Set a timer – you can use your phone or any free suitable application for timing your practice. As a beginner you don’t need complicated timers. One thing to mind however is to set a gentle, soft, nice alarm tone so when the timer goes off it will gently bring your attention back to your current environment.
3. Meditate in the morning – It is best to include the meditation practice into your morning routine. The alertness and awareness is easier to reach and it stays with you long into the day. You can of course meditate in the afternoon or in the evening too, but when you are committed it is more efficient to do it in the morning. Guided meditations with music a great choices for relaxation in the evening, so it can be beneficial to do these when you want to wind down after the day,
4. Choose a quite place – the benefits of meditation are building up over time so the best is to choose a place where you can sit day by day for a few minutes undisturbed. Over time you’ll learn how to be less distracted and settle into more noisy environments but in the beginning it is best to practice in a peaceful, quite place. In the beginning it can help to use earplugs or earphones so sudden noises don’t create impulses for you to react on during your meditation minutes.
5. Sit comfortably in a pose that keeps you alert – You can meditate inside the house or outside in nature, laying down or sitting on a cushion, on the floor, on a bench or on a chair. I know that doesn’t help a lot when you are starting out, so I would recommend instead of trying out all these one by one to just start with a sitting position. Being absolutely still for minutes can mix up your mind in the beginning of the practice and it might go into so much relaxation that you’ll fall asleep. That’s Ok if it happens, but it is more preferable to keep an upright posture, keep your back straight so your mind stays alert during the meditation. When you get more comfortable with the meditative state you can do whatever feels right at the moment.
6. Efficiency isn’t about any specific posture – You wont meditate better if you sit in the typical Buddha pose as a beginner. Crossing your legs like a pretzel won’t enhance your meditative state. Only regular practice will enhance your meditations. So don’t bother too much on the beginning about the details on how to hold your hands, or how to fold your feet. Sit simply and comfortably on a chair, rest your hands on your legs and relax your neck while slightly looking down. You can close your eyes slowly and keep it closed for the meditation, but it is not a must.
7. Contemplate after meditation – Right after you’ve finished your meditation session you can set the timer for 5 more minutes and write a short journal entry on how you feel, or write a list of gratitude. Meditation creates a mental state of alertness and calmness at the same time and it can benefit us greatly when we learn how to carry it on into other activities. If you jump up and run into the kitchen for food or you run out of the door for work this quality might dissolve without any real impact into the busyness of the day.

A SIMPLE MEDITATION EXERCISE FOR BEGINNERS

• Get comfortable but not too comfortable- sit in a position the you can maintain without problem for the next few minutes. Choose a position like the one described above, that feels comfortable but you are in enough discomfort so that you won’t easily fall asleep.
• Set the timer for 7 minutes. 5 minutes can be too short to experience anything and you might give up cause nothing happens. 10 minutes can be too much and you’ll loose efficiency and focus around the end.
• Close your eyes and take 4 deep breath breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. Feel how you are getting more focused and relaxed with each breath.
• Close your mouth and return to breathing naturally. Observe your breath by focusing on the movement of your lungs, ribcage as you breath. Make no effort breathing just let it flow naturally. Notice how the body moves with each inhalation and exhalation. Observe your breath without controlling it’s intensity or pacing.
• Return your focus back to your breath. You won’t notice when you mind wanders but sooner or later you’ll realize that you aren’t thinking about the breath anymore. You can find yourself well into planning your day or educating your kids or in the middle of some other mental conversation. Let it flow by, set it free like releasing a balloon from your hand and remind yourself that you are sitting in your quite place now and breathing. You can return your attention back to the sensation of breathing.
• Count your breaths. Sometimes the mind will be like a wild monkey that doesn’t want to let itself be tamed so you ‘ll find it difficult to keep it focused. This can be if you started meditating in stressful, challenging times or when your mind is really not used to relaxing. When you didn’t let your mind relax for a long time it will either fall asleep as you let it relax, or it will jump around hectically. In this case it is a good idea to count. Counting relaxes the mind and keeps it busy at the same time. You can count your breaths until you reach 5, or count each movement of breath( in 1, out 2, in 3, out 4…) till you reach 10. Than start again. As your mind wanders come back and continue counting where you left off. Don’t force the breathing just count it as it comes.
• As you feel yourself relaxing you can stop counting and let the breathing flow naturally. Observe your body as you breathe with a little more focus on your belly this time. Go on minding your presence until the timer goes off.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Meditation is one of the simplest mindfulness practices yet sometimes the simplest things are the most difficult to do. Mostly because it is something you want to do. Meditation is something that you can’t really do, it is something you can allow to happen.

Even if you sit and experience that your mind wonders and jumps around most of the time you will still receive the benefits of meditating on the long run. Your attention span improves over time and you’ll gain more awareness of how thinking happens in your mind.

Credits and further readings: P0 –yanalya ; P1- vectorjuice; Meditation Guide , Meditation for beginners