Beginner Tips for Creating a Consistent Meditation Routine
Beginner Tips for Creating a Consistent Meditation Routine
If you’re new to meditation, you may be wondering how to get started and make meditation a regular part of your life.
It can be really helpful for beginners of meditation to set a routine or schedule for when you are going to practice meditation. But how do I go about setting a routine? It’s about trying to make a habit out of it. But it can be challenging to form a new habit, especially one that requires carving out time for yourself in a busy world.
Because of this, it is usually suggested to beginners with mindfulness meditation to do their practice first thing in the morning before you start getting occupied and distracted with all of the things that need to be done during the day. For example, if you usually wake up at 8am in the morning, waking up 20 minutes earlier and doing your meditation practice then.
Sharing from my personal experience with meditation this can be quite helpful. Why?
I usually do my mindfulness practice before I start my day, but sometimes, this would be difficult for me, so I decide to do it later in the day.
Many times when this happens, I often forget to do my formal mindfulness meditation practice, and this does not come out of voluntary forgetting to do it but a genuine one. Why?
Because I would be so busy with tasks that I have to do during the day that I forget about it until when it comes to sleep or the next morning. This happens because it is hard to shift from “automatic pilot” and our daily tasks when we are consciously engaged in them, partly also due to habit. And I must confess that this still happens to me today, even though I have created a schedule for myself to practice meditation every morning.
What is essential is when this happens, not to beat yourself up, but approach this as a matter of fact with kindness and compassion towards and either do a short 5-minute mindfulness meditation there and then or set an intention to continue practising and do it in the morning even if you miss it one in a while. What is also important to remember as a beginner is not to give up, as setting a routine to make a habit takes time, patience and persistence.
In fact, a seminal study by Lally et al. (2012) looked into how long it actually takes to form a new habit. The study recruited 96 participants to examine how long it took for participants to develop a sense of automaticity with a new behaviour over a period of 12 weeks.
To do this, participants were told to commit to a new behaviour/task for the length of the 12 weeks of the study period and, each day, record whether or not they did the behaviour/task they committed to and how automatic the behaviour/task felt. Overall, participants chose simple, straightforward behavioural habits like “drinking a bottle of water with lunch.” However, other participants chose a more complex task like going for a “jog or run for 15 minutes” or committing themselves to regular physical exercise. The latter could be considered a task comparable to meditation, considering that both require a level of commitment.
After the 12 weeks, Lally et al. (2012) analysed the data to determine how long overall each took each person took from committing to starting a new behaviour to developing a habit of doing it regularly with a degree of automaticity. Where on average, they found Lally et al. (2012) that it sometimes takes more than 2 months before a new behaviour becomes automatic, approximately “66 days” (ibid. p. 1003).
The researchers also observed that this varies wildly from one person to another depending on the behaviour chosen, the person, and the circumstances the individuals find themselves in. In fact, Lally et al. (2012) study indicate’s that this varies anywhere from between 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit.
In other words, if you are new and starting your meditation practice, it is crucial to set your expectations appropriately and realise that it will be challenging at first to set up a daily regular mindfulness meditation practice. The truth is that according to the study’s findings, it will probably take you an average of two to eight months to build a new behaviour into your life.
What is Interesting is that Lally et al. (2012) findings also suggested, “that missing one opportunity does not preclude habit formation, but missing a week’s worth of opportunities reduces the likelihood of future performance and hinders habit acquisition” (ibid. p. 1007) and that “missing an occasion early in the habit-formation process was no worse than missing an occasion later on” (ibid. p. 1007).
In other words, as I mentioned earlier, Lally et al. (2012) findings also suggest it does not really matter if you miss your practice once in a while. What is essential is when this happens to not beat yourself up but approach this as a matter of fact with kindness and compassion towards yourself, as building better habits is not an all-or-nothing process.
Also, remember, If practising first thing in the morning is not possible for you, then do not worry. It is about what works for you, so setting a routine according to your schedule, seeing where it fits best for you to set aside some time during the day for a few minutes where you will not be disturbed to practice mindfulness meditation each day for yourself setting up a routine at a time that is more convenient to you.
To sum it up, establishing a consistent meditation routine can be challenging for beginners, especially in a busy world where many distractions and tasks are competing for our attention. However, with some planning and commitment, it is possible to develop a regular meditation practice. One helpful strategy is to set a routine first thing in the morning and to be patient and persistent even if you miss a session here and there. It is also important to approach setbacks with kindness and compassion, as it takes time and effort to form a new habit.
Bibliography
Choden, & Regan-Addis, H. (2018). Mindfulness-based living course. New Alresford: John Hunt Publishing.
Lally, P., Van Jaarsveld, C. H., Potts, H. W., & Wardle, J. (2012). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 49, 998-1009. doi:10.1002/ejsp.674
Segal, Z. V., Williams, J. M., & Teasdale, J. D. (2012). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guildford Publications.
Wolf, C., & Serpa, J. G. (2015). A clinician’s guide to teaching mindfulness: The comprehensive session-by-session program for mental health professionals and healthcare providers. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
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