If you’re here because you want to know how to meditate the right way, the good news is, there isn’t one. Maybe you’re picturing yourself sitting cross-legged on your bedroom floor, eyes closed, overcome by a deep sense of calm and inner peace. That’s certainly one method, but this mindfulness practice isn’t a one-size-fits-all experience.
Meditation is all about feeling more relaxed and aware of your thoughts and surroundings, and there are plenty of ways to get there, Diana Winston, director of mindfulness education at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center and author of The Little Book of Being, tells SELF. “It’s adaptable and shouldn’t feel like a huge commitment you have to take on,” Winston says.
In fact, she says that dedicating just 5 to 10 minutes to meditating each day can help reduce your stress levels and improve your sleep, to name a couple of motivating perks. If you want to tap into those benefits, or maybe you’re just curious about the hype, check out the expert-approved meditation crash course we put together below.
What is meditation, exactly, and does it have legit benefits?
Generally, meditation is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of contemplative practices, Wendy Hasenkamp, PhD, science director at the Mind & Life Institute and visiting assistant professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, previously told SELF. A lot of them, Dr. Hasenkamp says, “are drawn from Buddhist traditions but have often been adapted and secularized in Western society.”
With that in mind, the questions of what meditation is and how to meditate aren’t straightforward ones. “Just like there are many types of sports, there are also many types of meditation,” Winston says. And similar to how different sports share important things in common (like competition and physical activity), meditation has core tenets too. “I define it as any practice that cultivates inward investigation,” she adds.
For this article, we’re going to focus on mindfulness meditation because it’s popular, accessible to beginners, and well-researched in terms of its mental health perks. There’s a caveat for that last one, though: The proven benefits of mindfulness meditation are hard to sum up (so much so that SELF has a whole separate explainer on the topic). The bottom line is that the strongest evidence on the positive effects of meditation focuses on three conditions: depression, anxiety, and chronic pain. Meaning that a significant number of studies have found that meditating can potentially help you cope with the symptoms associated with these issues. (There’s also some promising research to suggest that mindfulness meditation may improve sleep quality.)
Science aside, it doesn’t hurt to also consider the anecdotal evidence. “People report more connection, gratitude, and appreciation of life when they practice mindfulness,” Winston says. It can also help you manage difficult emotions and cultivate positive ones, like kindness, she adds.
There’s no universal definition of mindfulness, either, but experts generally agree that it’s all about focusing on the present moment with openness and without judgment. “If you check in on your mind at any point during the day, you’ll probably notice you’re thinking about the past or future, or you’re generally planning, obsessing, worrying, or catastrophizing,” Winston says. And so, “mindfulness is getting in the practice of pulling our minds away from these places to come back to the present moment.”
How to meditate if you’re completely new to the concept
If you want to incorporate this self-care ritual into your life, here’s a beginner-friendly, step-by-step guide to get you started.
1. Find a cozy spot and get into a comfortable position.
“Many people think you have to sit in a certain way, like cross-legged on the floor, which is absolutely not true,” Winston says. All that matters is that you’re in a relatively quiet and distraction-free place where your mind and body feel at ease.
“You can sit in a chair. You can sit on the couch. You can lie down,” Winston says. Just make sure you’re relaxed “in a comfortable position where you won’t be disturbed [so that you can] bring your attention to your body.”
2. Really focus on your breathing.
You probably don’t give much thought to how you inhale and exhale as you’re going about your day. But while you’re sitting in your favorite armchair, say, or sprawled across a yoga mat in your backyard, “see if you can notice your body breathing,” Winston says. Maybe you feel your chest rising up and down, or the air moving through your nose. Then, pick a spot in your environment to focus your gaze on and stay with it, as you continue tuning into your breath.
Try doing that for even just five minutes a day. It may sound too easy, but this little exercise might be all you need to incorporate a fulfilling meditation routine into your life, Winston says.
3. Pay close attention to your thoughts.
The goal of meditation isn’t a completely blank mind. “It isn’t about turning off thoughts but rather learning to meet them with awareness and curiosity,” Laurasia Mattingly, a certified meditation and mindfulness teacher based in Los Angeles and the author of Meditations on Self-Love: Daily Wisdom For Healing, Acceptance, and Joy, tells SELF. But you don’t have to keep absolute focus, either. The key, instead, is simply noticing.
“When your mind wanders away, you notice what’s happening and then bring your attention back to whatever it is you’re focusing on in your mindfulness meditation, such as your breath,” Winston adds. In other words, if you catch yourself worrying about your upcoming work presentation or how your body looked in a recent picture, simply acknowledge those thoughts and get back to the task at hand.
“[Meditation] allows us to take a step back and become the observer,” Mattingly says. “When we invite in curiosity, we’re able to notice the changing nature of all emotions and realize that they rise and fall in everyone.” It’s totally natural to feel uncomfortable during this process, especially at first, but eventually, even the most intense feelings—like anxiety, shame, or sadness—won’t feel so overwhelming, she adds.
4. If you’re short on time, try the STOP method.
On those days when 10 minutes is still too big of a commitment, Mattingly’s got an on-the-go option for you. It’s called STOP meditation, which stands for: Stop what you’re doing, Take a breath, Observe without judgment, and Proceed.
You can do it pretty much any time, anywhere—as you’re brushing your teeth at night, for instance, or waiting for your coffee to brew. “This practice teaches us to check in with ourselves without judging our experience,” Mattingly says. So if you notice that you’re stressing about your dinner plans, say, or the fact that you woke up too late for your usual morning run, allow yourself to acknowledge these emotions without trying to “fix” or “change” them, she says.
5. Pick a time of day (or number of times a week) to meditate.
It’s easy to carve out a few moments of calm when you have nothing better to do. But in order to reap the benefits we mentioned above, you’ve got to stay consistent.
With that in mind, it can be helpful to set a specific yet realistic goal—like meditating on weekends only or every day during your lunch break, Winston says. This can make adding mindfulness to your everyday routine feel more manageable, so you’re more likely to stick with it, she adds.
6. Use a meditation app to encourage your habit.
There isn’t a magic tip out there that will compel you to meditate regularly, but you may find that an app makes the process more accessible and enjoyable. For one, push notifications will remind you to pause and do your thing. Guided sessions on your phone can also introduce you to a bunch of different meditation techniques and prompts, such as loving-kindness practices (using positive affirmations to build self-compassion) or body scans (tuning into the sensations of your body, from head to toe).
Here are a few meditation apps worth considering:
- Headspace (iOS and Google Play, $13/month or $70/year): Headspace comes highly recommended as a beginner app, thanks to its expansive library of guided meditations for just about every mood or goal. Plus they have a lot of their own educational resources too, like this guide to different types of meditation.
- UCLA Mindful (iOS and Google Play, free). Created by the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center and featuring recordings by Winston herself, this easy-to-use app has both basic meditations for beginners and wellness ones geared toward people living with challenging health conditions. If you don’t want to download the app, you can listen to a few of their free meditations on their website.
- Simple Habit (iOS and Google Play, free): This app is designed specifically for folks with busy schedules. It offers guided meditations to address a variety of issues, from sleep to anxiety to stress, in as few as five minutes—perfect for when you’re commuting to work or waiting for your laundry to dry.
7. Most importantly, be patient with yourself.
It would be amazing if there was a universal sign that meant you were officially reaping the benefits of meditation, but that’s not how it goes. “Meditation isn’t a prescription,” Winston says. “It’s not like if you meditate this amount of time for this number of days, you’ll see this specific result.”
Instead of expecting a miraculous transformation, Winston recommends paying attention to any small wins. Are you a smidge calmer? A little bit kinder to yourself and others? Sleeping any better than before? Are you at least enjoying these pockets of solitude and deep breathing?
As long as you feel good, that in itself is a pretty damn good reason to keep going. But if a regular meditation routine is becoming more of a hassle than a haven, it’s also totally fine to stop. What’s important is finding a way to tend to your mental well-being that feels doable and soothing to you—whether that be another form of meditation (like mantra or transcendental) or something completely different, like yoga, journaling, or just a brisk walk outside.
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