Here’s how to get started in just 10 minutes.

I’ve been meditating for many years. But after receiving my mindfulness teacher certification through The Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) & Soundstrue – the Awareness Training Institute – University of Calefornia Berkley’s https://mmtcp.soundstrue.com/

about the astonishing results of research around mindfulness meditation, I decided I needed to share this practice with the world…

What Is Mindfulness Meditation?

Picture yourself in a peaceful meadow, surrounded by tall grasses swaying in the gentle breeze. You feel the warmth of the sun on your skin and hear the soothing sound of birds chirping in the distance. As you take in the beauty of your surroundings, you become aware of your breathing and begin to feel grounded and centered.

This is the essence of mindfulness, a practice that encourages us to focus our attention on the present moment and cultivate a sense of calm and clarity. Whether you’re looking to reduce stress, improve focus, or simply appreciate the beauty of the world, mindfulness can help you achieve a more peaceful life.

This simple practice of being fully present and engaged in the current moment without judgment has brought incredible benefits to many who’ve learned it. Over the past 40 years or so, it’s gotten a lot of attention. Researchers have been trying to explain in biological terms why people who practice mindfulness say it fundamentally changes how they experience life.

The practice of mindfulness meditation, specifically Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), developed in the 1970s and ’80s by Jon Kabat-Zinn, has been studied extensively in a wide variety of fields. It’s been shown to be effective for reducing anxiety and depression, chronic pain, addiction, and high blood pressure, and helping with insomnia, among many other conditions.

As I read about these studies, I thought about my own habits around meditation, which had slipped over the years. I want to be as healthy and happy as I can be, and mindfulness practice appears to help with achieving those goals.

So, I downloaded three offerings from Audible by Kabat-Zinn — his two books, “Full Catastrophe Living,” and “Wherever You Go, There You Are,” and a set of guided meditations. [There are no affiliate links in this article.]

One of the meditations is a 45-minute reclined body scan, starting with the toes on your left foot, moving to the bottom of the foot, then the heel, then the top of the foot, and so on. Another 45-minute session is a simple sitting meditation in which you become aware of the breath and watch thoughts go by, acknowledging them and letting them drift away without getting caught up in them.

Two mindful yoga practices are included in the set as well. The yoga practices include long, deep, mindful stretches and gentle movements.

I’ve been drenching myself in Kabat-Zinn’s gentle voice and simple direction. It feels good to take that time for myself and refresh my own practice.

Practicing Mindfulness Meditation

In his eight-week course, participants meet weekly for 2½-hour group training sessions, do 45 minutes of daily work on their own, and attend a daylong retreat. Kabat-Zinn teaches that you should practice mindfulness at least 45 minutes a day. You might do a sitting or reclined practice a few days a week and a yoga practice on the others.

While these longer sessions are important to learn the practice and develop discipline, Kabat-Zinn makes it clear that any amount of time you can give to the practice is worthwhile. If you can’t devote 45 minutes a day, even 10 minutes a day will certainly be better than none.

Here’s a 10-minute guided meditation he’s posted on YouTube.

Teacher, author, and longtime meditation practitioner Terry Patten used to say the best bang for your buck in meditation is in the first five minutes. That’s when you’re fresh, settling in, bringing your attention to your breath, your muscles, and your posture. You’re just becoming aware of the random thoughts arising, unbidden, filling the movie screen of your mind.

Longtime meditator and neuroscientist Sam Harris, who developed the meditation app Waking Up, offers a different 10-minute meditation on the app every day. He has made a point of saying that meditation isn’t about what happens on the cushion. The idea is that you punctuate your day with moments of mindfulness … when you’re walking out a door, washing dishes, brushing your teeth, or talking with a friend. That’s what the practice is all about. Sitting meditation is meant to prepare you for all the other moments in life.

Here’s a typical 10-minute guided meditation by Harris.

Simplicity

Mindfulness practice may sound ridiculously simple, and in some ways it is. Harris makes an analogy to walking a tightrope, the instructions going something like this:

1. Find a horizontal cable strong enough to support you.
2. Stand at one end.
3. Place one foot in front of the other to move forward across the cable.
4. Repeat.
5. Don’t fall.

“Clearly, steps 3–5 entail a little practice,” Harris says. “Happily, the benefits of training in meditation arrive long before mastery ever does.”

More is probably better when it comes to practicing mindfulness, but five or ten minutes a day is definitely better than zero. There is much to be gained in just paying attention to what’s going on in your mind, even momentarily. The important thing is to repeat this momentary practice every day, throughout your day.

Step-by-step instructions

1. Sit comfortably, either in a chair or cross-legged on a cushion, with your spine erect but not rigid.
2. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Feel where your body makes contact with the chair or cushion. Notice any sensations while you’re sitting — feelings of pressure, tingling, temperature, etc.
3. Become aware of your breathing. Pay attention to wherever you feel the breath most clearly — that might be at the tip of your nose or in your abdomen as it rises and falls.
4. Rest in the simple sensation of breathing. (Don’t try to control your breath. Just let it happen naturally and observe the process.)
5. As thoughts arise, which they will, let them drift by, and gently return to the sensation of breathing.
6. As you focus on your breath, you’ll notice various sensations arise — sounds, emotions, maybe an itch or an ache. Simply notice these things as they arise, and then go back to focusing on your breath.
7. The moment you see that you’ve become lost in thought, notice that thought as an object of consciousness. Then return again to your breathing.
8. Keep going in this way until you can merely witness all the objects of consciousness — sights, sounds, sensations, emotions, and thoughts — as they arise and drift away.

The process of doing mindful meditation is simple. Yet, it can be frustrating when you notice how relentless thoughts can be, and it’s humbling to see how frequently you are carried away by them.

But that’s the practice. If you become distracted 100 times, just go back to the breath 100 times, without judging yourself. Don’t create a story around how hard this is, or what a bad meditator you are, or how you don’t have time to just sit around.

You’re building the “muscle,” or skill, of gentle persistence. And it’s an incredibly valuable skill to have.

Research Continues

The exploration of mindfulness is ongoing, and researchers are interested in learning exactly why this practice is helpful to so many people in so many different ways. Studies at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, for example, are focusing on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record brain activity in participants before and after taking a mindfulness meditation course.

These studies are fascinating, but there are challenges. One challenge is having a precise standard definition for mindfulness. Some describe it as a meditation-based practice that increases one’s sense of being in the present moment. But others describe it as a non-meditative state in which subjects set aside mental distractions and pay greater attention to the here and now.

Another challenge is identifying and sorting the many variations of the practice. Most scientific study has focused mainly on the secular practice of mindful meditation. But meditation is also a component of several religious traditions, and those traditions have varied meditation practices as well.

There are other variables to think about, such as the ideal length and frequency of meditation sessions. Taking all of those variables into account, if researchers can nail down precisely which elements are most effective, the therapy could be refined to be beneficial for even more people.

Taking Up the Practice

There are so many meditation apps that make sticking to a practice easier, such as my favorite: Insight Timer- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/insight-timer-meditate-sleep/id337472899

Waking Up, mentioned above. (I’ve had that app on my phone for years.) It contains hundreds of hours of content around various kinds of meditation, philosophy, and science, and conversations and courses with experts and esteemed teachers. Headspace, Ten Percent Happier, and Calm are also well-known and highly rated meditation apps with lots of additional content to help you stay grounded and peaceful, no matter what’s happening in your world.

Now that you know more about mindfulness meditation, what thoughts are swirling around your head? Will you begin the practice right now and let those thoughts pass away, without judgment? And will you start a consistent practice of mindfulness, beginning in this very moment?