When I first started learning how to meditate, I (of course) had no idea what it was about, and so I asked someone who basically told me “You just sit quietly for a bit and don’t think.” My immediate response was, “You have no idea who you’re talking to. I think. That’s what I do. That’s who I am. You might as well tell me to just sit and not have a pulse.”

My mind at that time was always running with something or other. Those thoughts weren’t always the kind of loud, frantic, persistent self-critical thoughts that many of us want to overcome. Sometimes they were exciting and fun, sometimes they were depressing, sometimes they were obsessive, and sometimes they weren’t particularly meaningful at all. But, there was always something going on in my head.

Meditation is about quieting the mind. I like to think of it as weight training for my sense of calm. It is difficult for those loud, frantic, persistent voices to exist in a calm quiet mind. Not impossible, mind you, just difficult. As we gain more practice in quieting our mind for just a brief period of time, it’s easier for our mind to get or stay quiet during the rest of the day.¹

As I write this, I’ve been meditating consistently for about 25 years. I’ve graduated from “Awful at it” to “Not all that good at it.” My current practice (which I’ll explain in detail below for anyone interested) involves two things. First, I use a timer app with intermittent chimes to help me focus. During that time, I concentrate on my breathing and intentionally breathe in a certain pattern, letting other thoughts go as they come up. And, just recently, I’ve started a body awareness focus as I breathe; I really focus on the feeling of my chest expanding and contracting with each breath.

I repeat that 5 minute practice every morning². What I’ve found, after decades, is that I’m calmer throughout the day. It’s easier for me to stay calm in the face of crises large and small, and it’s easier for me to avoid all the various sorts of frantic thoughts that can take over my head.

And, when I say that I’m “not all that good at it,” I’m serious. On an average day, during that 5 minutes, there are probably 3-4 times when I notice myself thinking about something. On a bad day, there might be 10-12 of those times, or I might just be thinking through the entire exercise. When I notice, or when one of the chimes reminds me to get back on track, I do my best to just drop the thought and return to focusing on my breathing.

(Many people will tell you that their meditation routine every day is 10 minutes, or 20. I even remember one friend a long time ago whose routine was an hour, twice every day. Definitely do what works for you, but I find that doing it consistently every day is more important than precisely how long. Would I get more benefit out of 10 minutes a day? Maybe. If I try that, I’ll report back. 😊)

I say that the above is my current practice. Historically, I’ve tried a bunch of things:

• 7 minutes instead of 5;
• A few varieties of guided meditations (both guided by a live person in the room with me and guided from a recording);
• Focusing on a candle;
• Focusing on my breathing just as it is without trying to control it in any way;
• Multiple timer apps;
• Guided meditation apps;
• Reading books about meditation (yes, actual dead trees pressed flat and glued together!);
• Visualization exercises, like smelling my favorite flowers as I breathe in, and exhaling all my bad thoughts as I breathe out.
• Probably a few other things that I’ve forgotten.

None of those things are bad, necessarily; they just didn’t work for me at the time I tried them, or don’t work for me anymore. The app that I use is the wonderful and stylish i-Qi Clock by Peter Hess; as far as I know, it’s iOS only. I don’t have any other books or apps I can recommend, because as I say, they didn’t work for me. Searching your favorite app store or bookstore will certainly give you more results than you need.

Like most of what I talk about, meditation doesn’t usually produce immediate results. But, if you start today, the results will arrive sooner than if you wait.

The Details

For anyone who’s interested, here are the details of exactly how I do my meditation practice (currently; this has changed before and may well change again). The breathing is adapted from my experimentation with both box breathing and 4-7-8 breath work, as well as some experience with breath yoga. The visualization practice is adapted from Shirzad Chamine’s Positive Intelligence work. First, I set up chimes in i-Qi Clock like this:

1. A loud, deep gong at 0:00 to start;
2. Softer, higher pitched chimes at 0:45, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, and 4:30³ to help remind me what I’m doing;
3. A loud, deep going at 5:00 to tell me that I’m done.

During those 5 minutes, I control my breathing by inhaling, holding, exhaling, and holding, each for a specific count. Each count is designed to be more or less the longest that I can do that thing, and the whole thing revolves around counting to twelve:

1. In through the nose quickly while counting to four, filling my lungs completely;
2. Hold while counting five through twelve;
3. Out through the mouth with my lips pursed (like I was blowing through a straw) for a count of twelve, emptying my lungs completely;
4. Hold for a count of twelve.

While I’m doing that breathing, I focus on the feeling of my chest as it expands and contracts.

There is nothing set in stone or magical or perfect about this practice; it’s just what I’ve evolved that’s working for me right now. Please feel free to borrow it, modify it, play with it, or ignore it completely if it doesn’t work for you.

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1. I was reading Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart the other day, and she was talking about gratitude. (This is related, I promise.) On her social media, she said something about gratitude being important, and a commenter responded with something like “Yeah, but it’s overrated as a cure for depression, trauma and anxiety.” Her response was that gratitude is not a cure for anything, and in fact no single practice or habit is likely to be a cure for any mental health issue. Meditation is the same. Not a cure for anything, merely a practice that can help. ↩
2. I say every morning, but I’m not perfect. As I write this, my habit tracker app tells me that I have a streak of 913 consecutive days. I’ve probably averaged 363-364 days a year for at least the past 15 years. ↩
3. Why are these times so complicated? It’s complicated. 😊
   When I first started, I had the inner chimes set to 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, and 4:00, but then I realized that it was too tempting to count the inner chimes as a way of predicting “Am I done yet?”, so I switched them to 0:30, 1:30, etc. But, then I found that the chime at 0:30 happened too early to be useful, so I switched it to 0:45. Still a geek at heart, and glad that i-Qi Clock gives me the flexibility to do this. ↩