Around ten years ago, I was sitting on Freshwater Beach in Sydney with a friend who showed me that despite the fact we were sitting on a beautiful sandy beach on a sunny day, our minds were elsewhere. This hit me like a tonne of bricks. Shortly afterwards I downloaded the Headspace app and tried meditating for the very first time. I had limited success with this over the years, and struggled for a long time to just sit still and reap the benefits of what so many people seemed to be raving about (I was so disillusioned by it I even released a few videos rubbishing the whole thing).
It wasn’t until I faced a really difficult and prolonged situation in my personal life that I found the capacity to sit and focus and feel the real benefits. Circumstances meant that I had to go into “radical self-care” mode, and one of the things I tried was meditating – this time for thirty minutes per day, every single morning. The results were slow at first, but after a month or so they really started to show. Clarity. Presence. Less procrastinating. Less ruminating. Less stress. Responding more, reacting less, and just feeling happier overall.
This is a skill that has been lost in our fast-paced modern world - evidence shows that a good chunk of the population would actually prefer to inflict physical or emotional pain on themselves than be alone with nothing to do. In one experiment, researchers placed a group of in a room alone by themselves for 15 minutes with nothing but a button to electrocute themselves with. Despite the fact that every single participant said they’d rather pay money than receive an electric shock, nearly half the participants chose to electrocute themselves rather than sit there alone and do nothing (Whitehead, 2014). For thousands of years, some of the greatest minds have had their most profound breakthroughs and insights through solitude and meditation, and we’ve lost the ability to simply sit still and be quiet for even 15 minutes.
Even short spells of meditation, when done consistently, can produce powerful benefits. It reduces stress (Goyal et al., 2014), relieves anxiety in people with pain (Rod, 2015), relieves depression (Jain et al, 2015), improves attention spans (Norris et al, 2018), helps create more constructive thought patterns (Dahl et al., 2015), can help fight addictions (Tang & Leve, 2016), improves positive self-statements and coping in people with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (Hoge, 2013), improves sleep (Ong et al., 2014), and much more.
So how do you do it? Get comfortable, close the eyes, focus on the breath. Whenever your mind wanders - and it will - bring it back to the breath. Sounds simple, right? It can be difficult for some, but I’ve found a few tips that can really help.
1. Comfort is key
If you’re not the flexible type, don’t try to twist yourself into a weird lotus position, or even sit cross-legged if this is uncomfortable for you. Just sit on the floor or on a chair with the back straight and the hands on the lap.
2. Long-term consistency beats short-term intensity
You’re much better off doing five minutes a day, every day, than aiming for a big two-hour spell once in a while. Success is the accumulation of habits over time – make it a daily practice.
3. Try using a mantra
If you struggle to focus on the breath for any length of time, or you find your mind racing constantly and feeling really restless, it might help to focus on a mantra. You can try “be still” on the inhale and “refill” on the exhale – just imagine these words as you focus on your breath.
4. Some days will be easier than others
While some may refer to it as a “gym for the mind”, your progression isn't likely to be linear. Some days your mind is going to be naturally more at peace than others, and how calm your mind is on a single given day isn’t a barometer for whether it’s working or not. The aim here is to simply notice the mind in its different states rather than judge the actual results.
5. Results are delayed
Much like the gym (or any skill, for that matter), you’re not likely to see huge benefits when you first start doing it. This is a practice that takes time to pay off, so be patient and know that with persistence and consistency, there are huge benefits to daily meditation.
Give it a crack – it’s free, and you can do it anywhere!
References
1. Dahl, C.J., Lutz, A. & Davidson, R.J. (2015). Reconstructing and deconstructing the self: cognitive mechanisms in meditation practice. Trends in Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(9), 515-523.
2. Goyal, M., Singh, S., Sibinga, E.M., Gould, N.F., Rowland-Seymour, A., Sharma, R., Berger, Z., Sleicher, D., Maron, D.D., Shihab, H.M., Ranasinghe, P.D., Linn, S., Saha, S., Bass, E.B. & Haythornthwaite, J.A. (2014). Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Internal Medicine, 174(3), 357-68.
3. Hoge, E.A. (2013). Randomised controlled trial of mindfulness meditation for Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Effects on anxiety and stress reactivity, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 74(8), 786-792.
4. Jain, F.A., Walsh, R.N., Eisendrath, S.J., Christensen, S. & Cahn, B.R. (2015). Critical analysis of the efficacy of meditation therapies for acute and subacute phase treatment of depressive disorders: A systematic review. Psychosomatics, 56(2), 140-152.
5. Norris, C.J., Creem, D., Hendler, R. & Hedy, K. (2018). Brief mindfulness meditation improves attention in novices: Evidence from ERPs and moderation by neuroticism. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12(315), 1-20.
6. Ong, J.C., Manber, R., Segal, Z., Zia, Y., Shapiro, S. & Wyatt, J.K. (2014). A randomised controlled trial of mindfulness meditation for chronic insomnia, Sleep, 37(9), 1553–1563.
7. Rod, K. (2015). Observing the Effects of Mindfulness-Based Meditation on Anxiety and Depression in Chronic Pain Patients. Psychiatria Danubina, 27(1), 209-211.
8. Tang, Y.Y. & Leve, L.D. (2016). A translational neuroscience perspective on mindfulness meditation as a prevention strategy. Translational Behavioural Medicine, 6(1), 63-72.
9. Whitehead, N. (2014). People would rather be electrically shocked than alone with their thoughts. Science. 3rd July. https://www.science.org/content/article/people-would-rather-be-electrically-shocked-left-alone-their-thoughts
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