How to meditate when you have no idea where to start

Even if you’re a fidgety overthinker.

If you’re wondering how to meditate,

there’s a good chance it’s because you’ve heard all sorts of things about how good it can be for you. People love to suggest meditation for a variety of reasons: to reduce stress and anxiety, to ease depression, to put you to sleep, to make you feel more present, to magically transform you into a better, more grounded human being. The claims go on and on. And while the benefits of meditation have been greatly exaggerated in a lot of ways, plenty of people find it to be a worthwhile practice – we agree. With everything going on in the world, it’s a good time to explore meditation and whether it might be useful for you too.

Meditation may seem simple – and in many ways, it is – but people are often unsure where to start and whether they’re doing it correctly. To help you learn how to meditate and integrate it into your life, we asked meditation experts some of your most common meditation questions.

01

What is it?

For this article, we’re going to focus on mindfulness meditation. Like meditation, there’s no single universal definition of mindfulness, but experts generally agree on the gist: focusing on the present moment with openness and without judgement. “If you check in on your mind at any point during the day, you’ll probably notice you’re thinking about the past or thinking about the future, or you’re generally planning, obsessing, worrying or catastrophising,” says Diana Winston, the director of mindfulness education at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Centre and the author of The Little Book of Being. “Mindfulness is getting in the practice of pulling your mind away from these places to come back to the present

moment.” Mindfulness meditation is the practice of cultivating mindfulness.

02

What are the benefits?

Here’s where things get a bit tricky. The proven scientific benefits of mindfulness meditation are hard to sum up. There are three conditions with a strong and convincing body of evidence to support the effects of meditation: depression, anxiety and chronic pain. Meaning, a not insignificant amount of meta-reviews and meta-analyses have found that mindfulness meditation can moderately help with symptoms associated with these conditions (or in the case of chronic pain, how people cope with symptoms, at least).

Research aside, though, it doesn’t hurt to consider the anecdotal evidence, as long as you don’t buy into meditation as a magical cure-all. People find meditation very worth doing for many different reasons. “People report more connection, more gratitude, and more appreciation of life when they practice mindfulness,” says Diana, who’s taught mindfulness for health and well-being in a variety of settings since 1993.

03

What are the basics?

People often imagine there are a lot of rules around how to meditate properly, but meditation is meant to be flexible and personalised. “Many people think you have to sit in a certain way, like cross-legged on the floor, which is absolutely not true,” says Diana. “You can sit in a chair. You can sit on the couch. You can lie down. However, you’re comfortable.” Diana notes that people also think they have to do it for a certain amount of time – often a long time – but that’s another misconception. A few minutes is fine.

To give you an idea of what mindfulness meditation looks like in practice, consider this basic example: “A very simple way to meditate is to sit down in a comfortable place where you won’t be disturbed and bring your attention to your body,” says Diana. “See if you can notice your body breathing. Maybe you feel your breath moving in your abdomen. Maybe you notice your chest moving up and down. Some people notice the air moving through their nose. Then, just pick a spot to focus your gaze on and then stay with it, feeling the breath rising and falling in and out. When you notice your mind wandering away, return your attention to your breathing and the spot that you’re noticing. Then just do that again and again. If you just did that for five minutes a day, you’d be golden.” It may sound too easy, but that might be all you need to incorporate a fulfilling meditation routine into your life.

04

How do I start?

Despite how simple the above example sounds, a lot of people understandably find it hard to do on their own without getting bored or restless. That’s where guided meditations come in. “It’s helpful to have guidance because people get discouraged when they sit down to meditate,” says Diana. “So many people try and then they’re, like, ‘OK, what do I do now?’

On top of gently easing you into meditating, guided meditations will also introduce you to a variety of specific meditations beyond focusing on your breath, such as loving-kindness meditations (which involve sending positive thoughts to others) or body scan meditations (which involve tuning into the sensations of your body head to toe).

05

How do I quiet my thoughts and keep my mind from wandering?

This is the most common misconception about meditation. Despite popular belief, the goal of meditation isn’t a completely blank mind. “Meditation isn’t turning off thoughts but rather learning to meet them with awareness and curiosity,” says Laurasia Mattingly, a meditation and mindfulness teacher. The same goes for our wandering minds; you don’t have to keep absolute focus, either. In both cases, the key is noticing.

“When our attention wanders away or other thoughts are coming up, we notice what’s happening and then bring our attention back to whatever it is we’re focusing on in our mindfulness meditation, such as our breath,” says Diana. “And then we do that over and over. What we realise is that that’s not a problem. That’s part of the process.”

06

How do I know I’m doing it right?

‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ aren’t the point of meditation. The only thing you need to do is make an effort. “If you sit down and ignore your guided meditation completely and decide instead to use the time to think about your to-do list for a day, you’re not really meditating,” says Diana. “But if you take a moment in the course of thinking about all the things you have to do to bring your attention back to your breathing and try to be present, you’re doing great.”

07

How do I know if it’s working?

Diana recommends two main things when it comes to judging whether or not meditation is working for you: checking in with yourself and sticking it out for a while. “Don’t try it once. Try it over time and then investigate how you’re feeling,” says Diana. “Am I seeing the effects? Am I noticing that I’m a little bit calmer? Am I being a little bit kinder to myself and others? Am I enjoying it?”

And remember: there are all sorts of types of meditation. If mindfulness meditation doesn’t work for you, you don’t have to swear off meditation in general.