Meditation for Beginners

Meditation is one of the best ways to reduce stress, increase mindfulness, and raise your vibration. This post will walk you through the basics of meditation if you are new to the practice.

How meditation can help you

By taking a few minutes to sit quietly and release your focus on your thoughts, you can reduce your stress and anxiety levels.

Meditation is also helpful to raise your vibration. If you are familiar with the law of attraction, you know that you are attracting the vibration that you exude; by meditating you will release negative thoughts and naturally raise your vibration.

Over time, meditation can enhance your ability to be mindful in your daily life, and may provide other emotional and physical benefits.

The journey is the destination

Many people are intimidated by the idea of meditation because they think that the goal is to reach a state where you are not thinking and you are simply being. Certainly it is possible to reach that state, but meditation is really about the process itself.

The practice of attempting to quiet your mind is just as valuable as actually quieting your mind.

Start slowly and build your practice

When I first started to meditate, I thought I should be meditating for 20 minute sessions every day. I’m sure for some people 20 minutes is easy (and maybe even short)! But for me, it felt like I was equipped to go for a casual walk only to find myself trying to climb Mount Everest. Twenty minutes was way too long for this girl.

I set a 20 minute goal because 20 minutes didn’t sound like a long time. And I also thought that I had to meditate for at least 20 minutes to get any benefit from the process. I was so wrong on both counts.

You can benefit by even a few minutes of meditation

Since you reap the benefits of meditation just by the process itself, it doesn’t matter how long you meditate for, as long as you’re doing it.

If you’re very new to meditation, I would suggest starting with just a few minutes at a time and see how you feel. If you set a goal of 2-3 minutes, you might find it was challenging to make it that long, or you may feel like the time went by too fast! You can adjust the time up or down as you want.

You don’t have to set a timer for your meditation sessions if you don’t want to. However, you may find it easier to relax if you know there is a set end time. This way you can focus on the meditation process itself instead of wondering how much time has passed.

If you prefer, you can meditate for as long as it feels comfortable for you. When you find that you are working hard to control your thoughts and return to your breath, simply release the meditation.

Every meditation session will feel different

Before I started meditating, I thought that I would reach a state of calm or peace every time I meditated. And while that was generally true (or, at least I achieved a state of relative calm), there were definitely sessions that didn’t feel as helpful or relaxing as others.

Don’t get me wrong, I always felt better after meditating, but the degree of the better feeling would depend. Some days, I would be able to mediate for 10 minutes (this still feels like a long time to me) and at the end I would feel totally blissed out and relaxed. Other days, I would try for 5 minutes, and I could barely control my thoughts.

Don’t worry if some sessions don’t feel as good as others. As I said before, it’s the practice of meditating that helps, and like all tools, it will work better for some situations than for others. While I find that meditation always makes me feel a bit better, there may be times when it doesn’t provide the same level of relief as before, and that’s OK.

You may not be able to fully quiet your mind immediately

While the idea behind meditation is to quiet your mind, remember that you’re reaping the benefits through the practice of this process—even if you are never able to fully quiet your mind.

Because it’s not about the end result, I would encourage you not to focus too much on whether you’re able to quiet your mind or not.

Don’t beat yourself up if you catch your mind wandering the whole time. That’s totally natural! Our minds wander 24/7! That’s why we practice meditation—to give ourselves a break from our thoughts.

You can meditate as much or as little as you want

There is no minimum or maximum amount of time you should meditate. You can do it as frequently or infrequently as you want, though you may find that you reap more benefits when you create a meditation routine. This could be something you do every day (for example, the first five minutes after you wake up) or something you do once a week, once a month, or even just when you feel overwhelmed.

My favorite times to meditate are right when I get up and right before I go to sleep. I find that the meditation process of quieting my mind helps me both prepare for the day ahead, and relax and unwind in preparation for a good rest.

A quick meditation guide

If you’ve never meditated before, or if you would like a refresher course, I’ve described my general practice here. You can read through it a few times before you start your meditation.

To start your meditation practice, find a quiet area where you can sit comfortably. I recommend that you start your meditation practice while sitting instead of lying down, just in case you might fall asleep.

If you choose to use an alarm, take this time to set your alarm now. If you have not meditated before, I recommend starting with just a few minutes. I also recommend that you select a quiet or calming sound for your alarm, as it can be very jarring to be pulled out of your meditation by a jangly ringtone!

Get comfortable in your seated position and close your eyes. Take a deep inhale through your nose. Feel the cool air enter your nostrils and travel through your lungs, bringing oxygen to your entire body. At the top of your inhale, hold your breath for two or three beats. Feel the discomfort of holding the air in your lungs. Then gently and slowly exhale through your nose. Take a beat or two before you inhale deeply again.

After you have completed several deep breaths, allow your breathing to revert to a natural pattern. As you sit, focus on the feel of the air as you breathe in and out. If it would be helpful, you may consider visualizing a calming location. This could be a forest, the ocean, a mountain range, or whatever location would be most peaceful to you.

Continue to breathe slowly. If you notice your mind starts to wander or thoughts begin to creep into your practice, gently redirect your thoughts back to your breath. Don’t feel bad if this happens almost constantly when you first start meditating, it’s very common!

When you are ready to come out of the meditation, gently and slowly open your eyes. Congratulations! You just raised your vibration and reduced your stress. Hopefully you had a positive experience and will consider incorporating more meditation into your daily life.

If you used this guide to meditate, how did you like it? If you’re an expert at meditation, what tips would you give to newbies? Share in the comments!