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In mindfulness meditation, we practice being aware of our breath's ins and outs and recognizing when our minds stray from the task at hand. The skill of bringing oneself back to the breath strengthens the attention and mindfulness muscles.

By focusing on our breathing, we can learn how to intentionally and judgment-free anchor ourselves in the present moment, returning to it time and time again.

The concept of mindfulness appears straightforward: it requires patience to practice. In fact, well-known meditation instructor Sharon Salzberg says that her initial encounter with meditation demonstrated to her how easily the mind becomes preoccupied with other things. "I wondered, well, how many breaths—roughly 800—would it take for my thoughts to wander? Salzberg says, "And to my utter amazement, it was just one breath, and I'd be gone."

While meditation isn’t a cure-all, meditation can give you the much-needed breathing room in your life. At times, it suffices to make better decisions for our communities, families, and ourselves. The three most crucial items you should always have with you when practicing meditation are a comfortable place to sit, a little patience, and self-kindness.

We infuse our lives with profound and enduring benefits when we meditate. Additionally, you don't require a costly membership or additional equipment.

​Here are five reasons to meditate:

Here's how to meditate so that anyone can do it.

Most people don't realize how easy—or how hard—meditation can be. Make sure you're in a place where you can unwind, read these instructions, set a timer, and try it out:

1. Sit down.
Locate a spot to sit that seems peaceful and quiet.

2. Establish a deadline.
It can be beneficial to start out with a brief period of time, like five or ten minutes.

3. Pay attention to your physique
It's okay to kneel, to sit loosely cross-legged, or to sit in a chair with your feet on the floor. Make sure you are secure and in a position that will allow you to remain there for a while.

4. Pay attention to your breathing
Pay attention to how your breath feels coming in and going out of your body.

5. Recognize when your thoughts have strayed.
Your focus will inevitably stray from the breath and go elsewhere. In a few seconds, a minute, or five minutes, you will eventually notice that your mind has strayed. At that point, just bring your attention back to the breath.

6. Show kindness to your straying thoughts
You shouldn't be hard on yourself or worry excessively about the ideas you can't seem to shake. Simply return.

7. Be kind to one another.
Raise your head a little and open your closed eyes when you're ready. Look around you for a moment and listen to any noises. Take note of your current physical sensations. Take note of your feelings and ideas.

That's it! That is the practice. You concentrate, let your thoughts stray, bring them back, and make an effort to act as compassionately as you can (as many times as you need to).

The process of meditation is no more difficult than what we have already covered. It really is that easy—and that difficult. It's worthwhile and powerful as well. Making the daily commitment to sit, even for just five minutes, is crucial. According to Sharon Salzberg, a meditation instructor: "The moment you sit down to meditate is the most important moment in your meditation practice." Because at that very moment, you are affirming to yourself that you believe in self-care and change, and you are making it happen. You're actually putting some values, like mindfulness or compassion, into practice rather than just holding them in theory.
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​According to recent research, practicing meditation for 12 minutes a day, five days a week, can strengthen and safeguard your attention span.

We have covered the fundamentals of breath meditation thus far, but there are other mindfulness practices that employ other focal points to anchor our attention than the breath, such as outside objects like sounds in the space, or something more general like observing things that spontaneously come into your awareness while practicing aimless wandering. All of these techniques, however, have one thing in common: we become aware of the fact that, quite often, our minds ARE in charge. It is accurate. Usually, we think things through before acting on them.

Ninety-five percent of our behavior is thought to be automatic. This is due to the fact that neural networks, which underpin all of our habits, convert the millions of sensory inputs we receive every second into digestible shortcuts that allow us to survive in this bizarre world. Because these automatic brain signals are so effective, we frequently revert to our previous habits before realizing what we were supposed to do in the first place.

The complete opposite of these automatic mechanisms is mindfulness. Because it is executive control rather than autopilot, it permits purposeful actions, willpower, and decision-making. However, it requires practice. The intentional brain becomes stronger the more we use it. Every time we intentionally do something novel, we activate our grey matter, which is full of newly sprouting neurons that are not yet trained for the "autopilot" brain. This process of deliberate action stimulates neuroplasticity.

This, however, is the issue. Our autopilot brain leads us to take short cuts through life, even though our intentional brain knows what's best for us. So how do we set ourselves up to be mindful when we most need it? This is where the idea of "behavior design" enters the picture. It is a means of taking control of your intentional mind. There are two ways to do that: first, you can slow down the autopilot brain by placing obstacles in its path; second, you can free up the intentional brain's path so it can take control.

It does take some work to tip the scales in favor of your intentional brain. Here are some starting techniques.

Put reminders for meditation all around you. Place your yoga mat or meditation cushion in the center of your floor so you can't miss it when you walk by if you plan to practice yoga or meditate.

Regularly update your reminders. Let's say you choose to utilize sticky notes to help you remember your new goal. That might help for a week or so, but after that your automatic mind and old habits kick in again. Try writing yourself fresh notes; be creative and/or humorous. That will make them stick with you longer.

Make fresh patterns. To easily create reminders to switch into the intentional brain, you could try creating a series of "If this, then that" messages. As an example, you could think of the phrase, "If office door, then deep breath," to help you enter a state of mindfulness just before you begin your workday. Your intentional brain will get stronger with each deliberate action to shift into mindfulness, such as "If the phone rings, take a breath before answering."

A Simple Meditation for Novices

First things first: the goal we have set for ourselves here is mindfulness, not some sort of magical process that purges your mind of the innumerable and limitless ideas that pop and pop into our minds all the time. All we're doing is practicing the practice of returning our attention to our breath upon noticing that it has strayed.

Prepare to sit motionless for a few minutes by getting comfortable. You are going to simply focus on your own natural breathing in and out after you have finished reading this.

Observe your breathing. Where is it that you most notice your breath? inside your stomach? within your nose? Make an effort to focus on each inhalation and exhalation.

Give your breath two minutes of attention. Breathe deeply, expanding your belly, and then slowly release the air as your belly contracts, lengthening the out-breath.

Glad to see you again. What took place? How much time passed before your thoughts strayed from your breathing? Even when you weren't actively telling your mind what to think about, did you notice how occupied it was?

Before you returned to read this, did you notice that you were lost in thought? Little stories that we didn't choose to tell ourselves frequently run through our heads, such as "Why DOES my boss want to meet with me tomorrow?"I have things to do, bills to pay, or the time-honored "I don't have time to sit still, I have stuff to do,"

You've made a significant discovery if you've ever experienced these kinds of distractions—which we all do—because that is the antithesis of mindfulness. It occurs when we are essentially not present in the moment—we live in our heads, operating on autopilot, allowing our thoughts to wander here and there as they explore the past or the future, for example. However, that's where the majority of us spend the majority of our lives—and, if we're being really honest, rather uncomfortable? But that's not how things have to be.


We "practice" mindfulness in order to become adept at identifying those moments when our minds perform their routine, everyday acrobatics and perhaps pausing long enough to select what we want to pay attention to. To put it briefly, meditation improves our relationships with ourselves and, consequently, with others.

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