Beginner Tips For Meditation: Start Small And Slow [With Guided Meditation]
Beginner Tips For Meditation: Start Small And Slow [With Guided Meditation]
Why start small as a beginner with mindfulness meditation? Do short meditation sessions have benefits? And guided meditation audio.
Usually, mindfulness programs ask participants to meditate for between 20 to 45 minutes a day. However, asking someone to meditate for 20 to 45 minutes a day can seem like a daunting and overwhelming task. Having a busy schedule where fitting 20 minutes to seemingly sit “doing nothing” might seem a waste of time, especially if the moment we sit to “meditate and relax,” the mind seems to go wild with all kinds of thoughts and things you need to do. Sitting with an agitated mind for any amount of time is not an easy thing to do.
The key to all this is setting realistic expectations and starting small.
For a beginner, going forward, it might be crucial to make the decision to start with brief, short sessions, even just five minutes a day, as a start.
An old Chinese proverb says,
“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backwards.”
As a beginner with meditation, heeding the advice of this proverb might be very helpful. Why? Although five minutes a day might not seem much, taking such an approach can have benefits and significantly improve the long-term chance of succeeding in setting a regular meditation practice.
So in this article, I will be sharing some tips on the topic of starting small with our meditation practice. I will also be referring to research that supports the notion of starting small and that to benefit from mindfulness practice, there is no need to spend 45 minutes a day sitting on a cushion meditating, but that 5 minutes can be enough as long as it is done with a level of consistency and dedication. So let us go.
So why start small?
As pointed out at the start, the primary reason is that starting with a long session can seem daunting and intimidating at first, especially if there is an expectation that I should feel better by meditating. This is especially true if we have a busy schedule; fitting a 20-to-45-minute meditation might seem an impossible thing to do. Fitting 5 minutes might seem the more realistic, easier thing to do.
So, because of this, starting with just a few minutes is more doable and less daunting, making it easier to begin and maintain your practice.
Further, as mentioned, shorter sessions will be easier to fit in as daily routine. This increases the chances of meditating with a level of consistency, which, as mentioned in the previous article, is one of the keys to forming a lasting habit.
In the previous article on “Beginner Tips for Creating a Consistent Meditation Routine,” we looked into researcher which found that it takes an average of 66 days for a new behaviour to become automatic (Lally et al., 2010). This underscores the importance of starting with manageable, short sessions to establish a consistent habit.
Further, it is important to note that meditation is a skill, and all skills improve with practice. So short sessions might help with this and might even give a sense of “mastery” with the practice as this allows us to build this skill gradually. A parallel that is frequently made is that meditation is similar to physical exercise. If you decide to start running by setting a goal of starting with 45 minutes a day, how likely are you to succeed? But if you set your goal of starting with 5 to 10 minutes a day and increasing gradually after a couple of weeks, we are more likely to succeed. This is much like starting strength training and how you would start with light weights at the beginning.
Further, as pointed out earlier, we need to be realistic and acknowledge the bare fact that sitting with the mind for any period of time is not an easy thing to do. Starting with long sessions for some can lead to mental fatigue, frustration, and getting lost in excessive rumination, where rather than helping, this might make things worse, causing you to give up. This is especially if you have a tendency for ruminative thinking, as research indicates that those more likely to drop from a mindfulness course in the first sessions are people who exhibit this pattern (Crane & Williams, 2010). Short sessions can help counter this.
But the million-dollar question is, do short meditation sessions result in benefits? And is 5-minutes of practice a day enough? Below, we are going to look at research that might answer these questions.
Does short consistent meditation practice result in benefits?
A systematic review and meta-analysis by Blanck et al. (2018) looking at how stand-alone mindfulness practice might influence levels of anxiety and depression found potential evidence for the benefits of short, consistent mindfulness practice in reducing levels of stress and depression. Further, what was curious is that the study found indications that the effects on levels of anxiety were moderated by the amount of practice (consistency) rather than the length of practice. So, this points out that what was important was consistency and regular practice rather than how long you practised each session.
In another study, Moore et al. (2012) observed how a brief regular meditation practice positively impacted correlates of attention. They noted how participants who practised meditation for an average of 10 minutes a day for 16 weeks showed improvements in executive functioning related to processing of conflicting information and maintaining attentional control. These increases also correlated with increased mindfulness scores on the “Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire” (FFMQ) post-test, with increases particularly predominant in the “observing” and “non-reacting” subscale, which could be argued are both needed to better process conflicting information.
Lacaille et al. (2018) also found potential evidence that daily practice, even if short, can positively affect how we respond to stress. They argued how,
“Consistent with our hypothesis, we found that on days when participants meditated, they reported increased mindful responding: Increases in their mindful responding was associated with reports of decreases in perceived stress and negative affect and increases in positive affect.” (Lacaille, et al., 2018, p. 118)
However, it has to be said that they also found that this effect was modulated by the amount of practice the participant did. So those that practised more than let us say, 5 minutes showed more benefit this increasing with the amount of time spent practice. This is sometimes referred to as “the daily dose-response hypothesis of mindfulness.”
However, they also found that this was also effected by “quality of practice.” This means that those who forced themselves to do a long practice and maybe ended up struggling this effected the benefits one had from mindfulness practice.
Again, what this points out to us is that if you can just manage 5 minutes of mindfulness practice a day, it might be enough - do not force yourself to practice longer if you cannot manage, as this can backfire. That said, there are studies that point out the opposite, that they did not find a significant change in benefiting from mindfulness between those who practised for a short versus those who practised for a longer time (Ribeiro et al., 2018; Schumer et al., 2018).
Another interesting study is one that compared results from two groups of college students where one group meditated for 10 minutes everyday for two weeks while the other group meditated for 20 minutes a day over two weeks. On comparing results, post-intervention Berghoff et al. (2017) observed how, independent of the amount of practice, both groups showed improvements in stress, mindfulness and self-compassion. However, they also noted how those that practised for 20 minutes a day showed far larger improvements in self-compassion compared to those that meditated for 10 minutes. Berghoff et al. (2017) concluded how the,
“Significant pre-post increase in mindfulness and reduction in stress was found for both experimental groups, suggesting that sustaining practice of brief mindfulness exercises over time confers positive benefits.” (ibid. p. 1518)
That said, we cannot dismiss that they found a significant difference, which is related to what we mentioned earlier, “the daily dose-response hypothesis of mindfulness,” where as daily time spent in mindfulness meditation practice increased improvements in self-compassion increased. So Berghoff et al. (2017) also observed “a significant time by-condition interaction for self-compassion” (p. 1518) when practising mindfulness.
More recently, in 2021, Strohmaler and colleagues conducted a study to see how length of mindfulness practice might effect levels of mindfulness, depression, anxiety and stress. To do this, they devised a three-arm trial with novice meditators, where one group practised 5 minutes of mindfulness meditation, a second group practised 20 minutes of mindfulness meditation and the third group acted as a control group where they listened to an audiobook. Similarly to findings from previously mentioned studies, Strohmaier et al. (2021) observed how, post-study, both those who practised 5 minutes and 20 minutes showed increased trait mindfulness and also reported a reduction in stress, depression and anxiety compared to the control group. However, they also observed an interesting between-group difference in effects between those who practised for 5 minutes and 20 minutes. Rather than those that practised for longer (20 minutes), those that practised for the shorter 5 minutes showed a larger increase in trait mindfulness and a larger reduction in stress compared to those that practised 20 minutes. Strohmaier et al. (2021) comment on how this was counter to what was expected.
Further comments by participants in Strohmaier et al. (2021) support the notion that for beginners starting with shorter practices might be recommended. In fact, Strohmaler and colleagues mention how, through the study, only those in the longer 20 minutes practice mentioned how,
“At times, they experienced some difficulties in holding concentration and avoiding mind-wandering during practice and how a number of participants in the longer practice group asked whether there was a shorter alternative to mindfulness practice.” (ibid. p. 581)
Further to this, Strohmaler and colleagues comment how only,
“People from the shorter practice group and none from the longer practice group requested the practice recording to continue their practice after the end of this study, and the facilitator observed more fidgeting and eyes opening in the longer practice group.” (ibid. p. 582)
As participants within this study were novice meditators, hypothetically, this indicates that for beginners with no prior experience starting with a short mindfulness practice might feel, as Strohmaier et al. (2021) put it,
“Attainable and sustainable ……… especially when there is minimal ongoing teacher input and prior practice experience” (p. 582).
That said, what can we take from these research findings, and what might be some tips to start and implement short sessions.
Tips to Implement Short Sessions:
1. Start with short 5-minute sessions: Begin with sessions as short as 5 minutes. 5 minutes might seem like a short time, so the perception might be that it might not be a long enough time to benefit from meditation. Still, as we saw from research it is actually enough as a starting dose to experience benefiting from mindfulness meditation.
2. Set a timer: Before you start, set a timer for your chosen duration of practice. You can use your mobile or a meditation timer app. This can help you focus more on your practice as it takes away the element of worrying or tracking the amount of time passed while practising.
3. Use a guided meditation: As we saw from research, as a total beginner, it might be helpful to use a guided meditation as this will offer instructions to keep you on track for your chosen time of practice and also offer you prompts to notice if your mind has wandered into thinking. If you are a paid subscriber, below are a 5-minute, 8-minute and 10-minute guided mindfulness of breath practice.
5-Minute Mindfulness of Breath Practice Led by Clayton Micallef
8-Minute Mindfulness of Breath Practice Led by Clayton Micallef
10-Minute Mindfulness of Breath Practice Led by Clayton Micallef
4. Quality over quantity: As we saw from research, it is not the amount of practice in minutes that is important; it is the “quality of practice.” So remember that if it is only a 5-minute meditation practice that you can manage, do not force yourself. As we saw, a 5-minute practice where you are able to follow instructions appropriately is more beneficial than trying to force yourself to do a 20-minute practice where you end up feeling frustrated for any number of reasons, this could be not managing to sit still not more than 5-minutes, starting to doze after 5-minutes, or just struggling or not managing to maintain engagement or focus on the practice for more than 5-minutes. As we saw from research, forcing yourself can backfire, so prioritize quality over length of practice.
3. Gradually increase duration: As we saw from the above research, certain characteristics like self-compassion and mindful responding might be linked to what is called the “daily dose hypothesis of mindfulness meditation.” So, as you become more comfortable with mindfulness meditation practice and feel grounded and apt with the current length of time you are practising, you might consider slowly increasing the length of your practice. Again, the trick is to do this slowly, so even adding 2 minutes is enough. (We mention some tips for doing this below)
6. Multiple short sessions: If you wish to increase your time but still struggle, instead of doing one longer session, you might consider doing multiple 5-minute short sessions, like two or three times throughout the day. For example, you could do 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the afternoon or any schedule that fits you. You could also practice, for example, after finishing something like after finishing work before you go home and then maybe after washing the dishes. The invitation here is to be creative in how to fit multiple short sessions throughout your day.
4. Listen to your body and mind: That said, one other important point is to listen to yourself and what your body and mind are telling you. What is meant by this? There might be days when you feel really good, capable and raring to go to do a longer meditation practice. At the same time, there will be days where you might feel you are struggling even with short sessions. The key here is to be kind, flexible and understanding with yourself and adjust/modulate the length of practice accordingly. As we saw, the key to benefiting from mindfulness is not the length of practice but being consistent with your practice.
Further, as we already mentioned, as you become more comfortable and settled within the short sessions, you may find yourself wanting to increase the time you spend in meditation. So, how might you go about this? What might be some tips for increasing the length of your meditation practice!
Tips for progressing from short sessions:
This is a great sign, but it’s important to progress slowly:
1. Small incremental increases: When you feel you are at a place to progress beyond or increase the length you spent practising meditation again the fundamental tip is to go at it slowly, be gentle with yourself and do not force yourself. So again, increase the length gradually in small bouts. These can be a gradual increase, as small as two minutes at a time.
2. Be consistent: What is meant in this context by being consistent? Again, increasing the length of your practice involves a change that needs to set in. So the key is to increase the time and then maintain your new duration for at least a week or until you feel comfortable and settled in with the new length before considering another increase. Again, no rush; the practice of meditation is not a sprint but a marathon.
3. Listen to your mind and body: This is similar to what we said previously. If, at any time or at any point, the longer duration feels challenging or difficult, it is okay to scale back the time you spend practising. Remember that from what we saw from research studies, the key to benefiting from mindfulness meditation is not dependent on the length of practice but consistency (regular practice) and the quality of practice. So, our goal should be one where we aim to make our mindfulness meditation practice sustainable in the long run (as we mentioned, meditation is a marathon and not a sprint).
Ultimately, from what we saw and even from personal experience with practicing and teaching mindfulness , the key is to remember that there is no “right” or “optimal” duration for mindfulness meditation practice.
As we saw from research and the main points that we discussed in this article, consistency and the quality of your practice are what matter the most. Even if you meditate for no more than 5 minutes a day for the rest of your life, as we saw, you can still benefit from mindfulness meditation practice. The key is to find a duration that works for you and fits within your lifestyle, one that allows you to maintain a regular meditation practice over the long term. Keeping in mind that,
Mindfulness is not a “sprint” but a “marathon,” the marathon of our lives and an opportunity to live in a more grounded and wholesome manner with ourselves, others and the situations we encounter in life.
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References
Berghoff, C. R., Wheeless, L. E., Ritzert, T. R., Wooley, C. M., & Forsyth, J. P. (2017). Mindfulness meditation adherence in a college sample: Comparison of a 10-min versus 20-min 2-week daily practice. Mindfulness, 8, 1513-1521. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0717-y
Blanck, P., Perleth, S., Heidenreich, T., Kroger, P., Ditzen, B., Bents, H., & M. (2018). Effects of mindfulness exercises as stand-alone intervention on symptoms of anxiety and depression: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 102, 25-35. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2017.12.002
Crane, C., & Williams, J. M. (2010). Factors associated with attrition from mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in patients with a history of suicidal depression. Mindfulness, 1, 10-20. doi:10.1007/s12671-010-0003-8
Lacaille, J., Sadikaj, G., Nishioka, M., Carriere, K., Flanders, J., & Knauper, B. (2018). Daily mindfulness responding mediates the effect of meditation practise on stress and mood: The role of practise duration and adherence. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 74(1), 109-122. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.22489
Lally, P., Van Jaarsveld, C. H., Potts, H. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674
Moore, A., Gruber, T., Derose, J., & Malinowski, P. (2012). Regular, brief mindfulness meditation practice improves electrophysiological markers of attentional control. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 18. doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00018
Ribeiro, L., Atchley, R. M., & Oken, B. S. (2018). Adherence to practise of mindfulness in novice meditators: Practises chosen, amount of time practised, and long term effects following a mindfulness-based intervention. Mindfulness, 9(2), 401-411. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0781-3
Schumer, M. C., Lindsay, E. K., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Brief mindfulness training for negative affectivity: A systematic review and meta analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 86(7), 569-583. doi:10.1037/ccp0000324
Strohmaier, S., Jones, F., & Cane, J. E. (2021). Effects of length of mindfulness practice on mindfulness, depression, anxiety, and stress: A randomised control experiment. Mindfulness, 12, 198-214. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01512-5
Gratitude for these beautiful insights.