The Busy Girl's Guide To Meditation
When you consider the benefits (reduced stress, better sleep, a sharper mind), it’s no wonder that so many rhapsodize about the transformative power of meditation. But despite its immense popularity, the ancient practice can still seem inscrutable, even intimidating. Well, you can exhale: meditation is easy to begin and simple to maintain, and it can readily be integrated into busy lives.
By Meirav Devash
You don’t need a silk cushion or a gong to start meditating—unless, of course, you want them. Just sit down and start breathing.
No, You Don’t Have to Take a Vow of Silence
What’s older than Buddhism by thousands of years? Meditation. But for something so ancient, it’s remarkably adaptable. “The word used to come with this baggage of being part of a religion, but today that’s just no longer the case,” says Andy Puddicombe, a former Buddhist monk who runs the Headspace health and meditation website. Corporate figures, athletes, and tech executives have taken up the practice, attracted more by the promise of stress reduction and sharper mental focus than by spiritual enlightenment. Meditation, like yoga, is now offered at health clubs and drop-in studios, such as Unplug Meditation in Los Angeles. “I like to think meditation has been stripped down,” Puddicombe says. “You decide how you want to use it—for your job, for your relationships, to fall asleep faster.”
Stick to the Present Tense
Meditation hits pause on what Buddhists call the “monkey mind,” the internal cable-news crawl of nonstop thinking and analysis that can cause constant low-grade anxiety. “When we’re not in the present moment, we’re lost in the past or worrying about the future,” says Diana Winston, the director of mindfulness education at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center and a coauthor of Fully Present (Da Capo Lifelong Books). “We’re planning, catastrophizing, or wishing we had done something differently. Learning to be in the moment takes us out of this state.”
Don’t Hold Your Breath
Sit comfortably anywhere you want—on a mat, a cushion, a chair. (Just don’t lie down, since you could fall asleep.) Close your eyes, or leave them slightly open and rest your gaze on a spot in front of you. “Bring your attention to the sensations of breathing in and out,” says Sharon Salzberg, a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and the author of Real Happiness at Work (Workman). “If a thought, a sensation, or a sound comes up, allow it to pass, and stay connected to the feeling of the breath.” The best time to do it is first thing in the morning, before you get sucked in to the day’s distractions. “Don’t get out of bed; don’t check your email; just sit up and meditate,” says Paula Tursi, the director of Reflections Center for Conscious Living and Yoga in New York City. Do it again later in the day: Meditate for a few minutes instead of going to Starbucks, take time to reflect during sunset, or decompress before you slip into bed.
Can You Feel It?
"It isn’t supposed to feel any particular way," says Winston, though people often report feeling calmer and more at peace both during and after meditation. Tursi calls the feeling comfortable, "like sitting in the hot tub at the end of a long day, and you’re like, Ahhhhh." Transcendence, the goal of Transcendental Meditation, is a shift in consciousness, says Norman E. Rosenthal, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., and the author of Transcendence (Tarcher). “People go into a pleasant state where time and space seem to lose their boundaries,” he says.
If At First You Don’t Succeed
Like many newcomers to meditation, you may be inclined to ask, “Seriously, I’m supposed to do this every day?” Ah, but you might want to. As with the body, exercising your mind is all about consistency, and results can be swift. Meditating for 25 minutes for three consecutive days was enough to alleviate at least some stress when test subjects were asked to perform demanding tasks in front of an intimidating audience for a Carnegie Mellon University study whose results were published earlier this year. To really feel the benefits, though, try to stick with daily meditation for at least 30 days. “Every day is ideal, but three times a week will do. Twenty minutes is better than ten, but if you’ve only got five, do five,” says Salzberg. “The every-day-ness of it is the most potent thing. You’ll see a difference.”
Take It Easy
The only wrong way to meditate is to create impossible expectations, criticize yourself for not living up to them, and then give up altogether. “People get so discouraged, saying, ‘I couldn’t make my mind blank’ or ‘I couldn’t have only beautiful thoughts,’” says Salzberg. “It doesn’t matter; truly, it’s all about moving on and beginning again.” What if you’re the type of person who can’t focus on anything for more than ten seconds? Let it go. “When you first try to rest your attention on the feeling of the breath, it’s not likely to be 800 breaths before your mind wanders; it’s likely to be one, or maybe three, and then you spin off somewhere,” Salzberg says. “That’s where the training comes in. Practice allowing the distraction to pass—neither focusing on it nor trying to stop it—and begin again by gently bringing your attention back to breathing.” If you have to do that billions of times, so be it.
Free Your Mind and the Rest Will Follow
You’ll likely notice changes in your day-to-day life during the time you’re not meditating. “Some first signs are sleeping better at night, feeling calmer and less anxious during the day, and staying focused and less scattered,” says Bob Roth, the executive director of the David Lynch Foundation, which offers Transcendental Meditation training in schools, prisons, and homeless shelters. And you may not feel a damn thing: Friends, family members, and colleagues are often the first to notice that you’re less snippy or more attentive during conversations. When you meditate again and again, you create new connections in your brain by repeatedly tapping in to a relaxed state of awareness—they don’t call it “meditation practice” for nothing. Later, in a stressful situation at the office or in an airport check-in line, “that reflex kicks in because you’ve already got those pathways,” says Rosenthal. “It settles you down much quicker, and you may get much less bent out of shape than before you started meditating.”
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photo: Jesse Frohman
