In this article, I’m going to talk about how to properly meditate. The number one question that my friends and people that I know ask me is: How can I meditate well? I want to do meditation, but I just fall asleep, I don’t know what to focus on, I don’t know how long I should do it for, I don’t know what to think about. So many different questions that prevent people from meditating properly.
So, if you’re somebody who has trouble meditating if your meditations aren’t as effective as you would like them to be let me know in the comments below so I can address those issues and comment on them back.
First of all, I want to debunk some myths about meditation. Many people think that meditation is just about sitting still or lying down still and closing your eyes and not moving at all. Actually, that is not really meditation, that’s more like just resting. If you’re gonna do that just go to sleep. That’s resting.
Meditation is all about not what the postures you take but where your mind is. That means even if you’re sitting still and you look like you’re in meditation with your eyes closed, if your mind is wandering every which direction in different parts of your life, that is not meditation.
And on the other hand, even if you’re out and moving around, even when you’re dancing with your eyes open, if your mind is in the right spot, even that can be considered meditation.
To answer the question of how to properly meditate I have covered 5 practical tips for people who are lazy at meditation, people who are having trouble making it a daily, consistent habit.
5 practical tips for beginners to meditate properly
1. It’s best to start small when you first start meditating
Alright, the first tip I have for all beginners at meditation is to start small.
Don’t think that you have to sit down and meditate for like thirty minutes or more at the beginning because it can be really overwhelming if you’re not used to it.
So I would say, start with ten breaths, okay?
If you can count to ten, then you can meditate, just taking in ten breaths in and out.
You can consider that one session, taking ten breaths. And you can do that in the morning, in the middle of the day, and in the evening.
Honestly, that’s already a good start because when you’re taking those ten breaths, you’re bringing yourself to the present, you’re centering your mind, and you’re kind of getting a taste of meditation and what it’s really like.
For me, meditation is a lot of just listening to my breath, bringing my attention back to my breath, making sure I’m fully aware of the present moment.
So start with the ten breaths, and if you feel like you can go longer than that, then you can start meditating for two to five minutes at a time.
Make it really easy.
I like using a meditation timer. I use one called Zenfriend. So start with two to five minutes at a time. And you can do it once a day, twice a day, three times a day.
It’s really up to you. But just start small, start manageable, and take it from there.
Remember that you can meditate any time during the day. You can do it in the morning, right after you wake up, or in the evening before you go to bed, or any time.
Just take a break in the middle of your day to re-center yourself and just meditate midday.
If you look at it that way, there’s really no excuse to not meditate, because everyone here can carve out five minutes, sometime during their day.
There’s always time to meditate. We just have to make that time, slip it in wherever it fits.
2. Use Mantras and Affirmations while meditating
My next tip is to use mantras and affirmations to help you focus during meditation.
If you’ve tried to just sit there and meditate, sometimes your mind just wanders and it goes crazy, and it’s really hard to remember to stay present and focused on your breath.
That’s natural because our human brains are all over the place. That’s the purpose of meditation, to learn to train our brains to focus more.
But if you’re still a beginner, it could be really hard to sit down and be still for a long period of time.
So something that’s helped me is to just repeat a mantra or affirmation, which is a positive or empowering statement.
Just repeat it over and over again in my head.
Just pick a phrase like, “I am supported, I am guided, I am protected,” or “I am worthy, I am beautiful, I am strong.”
Whatever type of phrase gets you feeling positive and empowered, use that phrase and say it over, over, and over to yourself in your head, during meditation.
You notice that that phrase is kind of like your anchor during meditation.
It helps you focus on one thing so that your mind doesn’t wander like crazy.
And it also has positive side effects, because when you’re saying an empowering, positive statement over and over again, you just feel better about yourself.
You feel more of whatever it is that you keep repeating to yourself. And repetition is really a way to ingrain something into our brain, especially during meditation.
So it can really add a positive effect too, not just meditation, but your entire life, the rest of your day as well.
3. Meditate on the go
My next tip is to remember that you don’t have to sit down to meditate. Meditation comes in many different forms.
You can technically meditate when you’re doing autopilot things like driving, cooking, cleaning, walking.
You can use those activities as a meditative practice.
All meditation is, is bringing mindfulness to the present, being mindful of exactly what you’re doing, immersing yourself fully in the present, and just not letting your mind go on autopilot and wander around here and there.
For example, when you’re driving, instead of letting your mind go on autopilot, what I do sometimes is: I turn off the music and then I just focus on my breathing while I’m driving, and I treat that as my meditation.
You can essentially bring more mindfulness into any of these mundane activities that you do throughout the day. And I think that’s the goal.
The goal is to be able to be fully present and mindful, throughout your entire day.
4. Listen to binaural beats while meditating
My next tip for an easy way to meditate is to listen to binaural beats.
Binaural beats are essentially an audio track that you have to listen to on headphones.
You have to make sure the left and right ear are separated. The reason is that the audio track plays a slightly different frequency in both ears.
Your brain is not used to hearing two different frequencies in both ears at the same time.
What it does is: It cancels out that tone and it hears an invisible, third frequency that is the difference between these two frequencies.
The science might be kind of hard to explain, but here is the link to an article that helps explain it a little better.
But essentially, listening to binaural beats puts your brain into a meditative state after at least seven minutes.
You have to listen to it for at least seven minutes or more, then you’ll notice that… It’s kind of like a massage for your brain.
That’s how I feel.
I’ve been using this app called Synctuition.
What it is: It plays binaural beats, but it’s also highly produced high-quality meditative sounds.
It just sounds like relaxing music and each track has a different theme to it. So I listen to Synctuition right before I go to sleep. At night, I just put the headphones on in bed. And the track is like 25 minutes.
Usually, I doze off in the middle of the track. I get really, really sleepy and really, really relaxed so that by the end of the track, I just take off my headphones and I’m already basically half asleep.
I love it because, for me, I kind of have insomnia sometimes. It’s hard for me to fall asleep.
So listening to binaural beats, it really is a lazy meditation where I feel like I’m meditating, but all I’m doing is lying in bed, listening to music, right before I go to sleep. Plus, it helps me sleep better.
You could also do a quick YouTube search of “binaural beats” and you’ll find a lot of different tracks. But the ones that I found on YouTube are pretty boring. It’s literally just the tone.
So I like Synctuition because it really is highly produced audio. They put a lot of effort into making it sound good for 25 minutes. So it’s not boring in my opinion.
Another alternative is to just find soothing meditation online. You could find that on YouTube or on Spotify.
These are not binaural beats, but just soothing sounds that help you get into that meditative state.
If you don’t like meditating to silence, then it may be helpful to just play some nice meditation music in the background.
5. Try a guided meditation to meditate properly
My last tip–and a lot of people love this one–is: You could totally try a guided meditation.
There are apps like Calm and Headspace that are really, really popular, that have guided meditations that will lead you step-by-step through your meditation.
And for some people, it’s their favorite way to meditate.
For me, personally, not so much. I don’t know why I don’t like following someone to tell me what to do. I just kind of like doing it on my own or listening to music.
So it’s really up to you.
Give it a try. There’s Calm, Headspace, and you could also find guided meditations on Spotify. Headspace has a Spotify playlist of their own guided meditations.
Also, you could find some good ones on YouTube. I know Louise Hay and Deepak Chopra are really, really popular for guided meditations, just because they infuse this purpose and meaning into their guidance.
Actually, before I discovered Synctuition, my favorite thing to listen to, to help me go to sleep, was Deepak Chopra’s guided meditations.
I really, really, really loved those, because I think Deepak Chopra’s voice is really calming. And he sounds wise, so give that a try.
Hopefully, by now, you have some new ideas on how you can incorporate meditation into your life.
Just really look at all these different options.
There are so many ways to bring more mindfulness into your day and to always remember to center yourself with your breathing.
Let me know if you try any of these techniques. Let me know which one is your favorite. And hopefully, hopefully you could build a more consistent meditation practice so that you could reap all the benefits because it really does enhance your life. It enhances how you feel. And it’ll bring more peace within you.
Alright, I hope you have a beautiful day. Thanks so much for reading this one.
FAQs on ways to Meditate
🧘 Can I lie down and meditate?
Indeed, you can meditate lying down. You can meditate on the floor, on a bed, a couch, or on a foam mat. as long as you don’t fall asleep, you will still be meditating.
🧘 How do you know if you are meditating?
You feel a sense of greater peace. You can have times of deeper calm either during your meditation or after your practice. You may even experience some reluctance to end your meditation session. One of the primary indications of progress in meditation is to be progressively relaxed with the thought or not to make progress.
🧘 Do you need less sleep if you meditate?
In long-period meditators, a few hours spent in meditation are related with a noticeable decrease in total sleep period when examined with age and sex-coordinated restrictions who didn’t meditate. Whether meditation can actually substitute a part of sleep or pay-off sleep debt is under further study.
🧘 How long does it take for meditation to work?
Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada found that meditating for only 10 minutes daily was sufficient to see outstanding outcomes. As long as it is done consistently, sitting calm and breathing deeply for just 10 minutes can help you focus better throughout the day.
You may also like to read our article on how to wake up early in the morning.
