In the era of constant social, political and economic volatility when things feel out of control, it’s natural that your stress levels also rise. A body of research suggests that adding meditation to your self-care list alongside regular exercise, healthy nutrition and ample sleep bring work-life balance, reduce stress and prevent burnout. If you haven’t meditated before or if you’ve tried meditation without success, there are five-minute beginning meditation steps that refresh your mind and boost your mental health while you’re working.
The Importance Of 5-Minute Beginning Meditation Steps
If you’re like most employees faced with job uncertainty, you might not realize that you’re hard-wired for anxiety to keep you safe. Anxiety is a doozy of a safety scanner, warning us of potential threats of layoffs, economic threats or when we’re behind on a deadline. For this reason, experts advise you to treat anxiety as your best ally, not your worst enemy. The key is to notice it with curiosity instead of think it with judgment.
Neuroscientists teach that mindfulness meditation is an antidote to worry, fear and anxiety. A nonjudgmental, compassionate acceptance of whatever is happening in the present moment calms the nervous system. It takes you off the red alert of your thinking mind and brings you into the present moment of your noticing mind, activating your rest-and-digest-response.
You are the captain of your ship, not a passenger. Through regular mindfulness meditation like practicing workflow meditation during the workday or taking mindful awe walks, you notice your anxious mind and become more in charge of it instead of it being in charge of you. The starting point is learning to cultivate present-moment awareness and simply noticing your anxiety.
Getting Started With Beginning Meditation Steps
Plenty of obstacles and myths abound that can keep you from taking the first step to meditate. You don’t need to assemble elaborate equipment, burn incense, twist yourself into a pretzel, sit lotus position cross-legged on the floor or on a beach, chant or play “weird” music.
All you need is five minutes, your noticing mind versus your thinking mind, a comfortable chair or cushion and a place where you won’t be distracted. Sit upright with your spine straight in a chair or on the cushion, and you’re ready to roll.
I recommend you meditate for only five minutes to start, gradually increasing your sit time to fifteen or twenty minutes once or twice a day. One of the simplest and easiest forms of meditation is to notice your breath as a focal point. The actual practice is noticing when your attention strays and bringing your mind back to your breath, linking your mind and body together in the present moment. That’s it.
When you do this on a regular basis, meditation practices keep you in the here and now as you move through your daily work routines. You can practice these simple steps at your desk during the workday, in your car or at home on your sofa or bed.
- Settle in to your favorite spot and begin to relax your body. You can close your eyes or leave them open or half-open.
- Start to pay attention to your breathing. Notice the air moving in through your nose and out through your mouth. Don’t over-breathe. Allow your breath to move naturally as you observe it.
- Breathe in and out as you focus on each inhalation and exhalation, noticing how it feels as you begin the inhalation, how it feels as you are between the inhalation and the exhalation and the sensations of your breath on the exhalation.
- Follow your breath through to a full cycle from the beginning of an inhalation, where your lungs are full, back to where they’re empty.
- Notice the rise and fall of your belly; the air moving in and out of your nostrils.
- As thoughts and feelings arise in the form of judgments—wondering if you’re doing this right, thinking about what you have to do later or questioning if it’s worth your time to be doing this—simply observe the thoughts without added judgment and let them go.
- Once you realize your thoughts have hijacked your attention, don’t struggle with or fight them. Gently bring your attention back and focus on your breath.
- Every time you notice your attention leaving your breath, bring your awareness back to concentrating on your breathing.
- If your mind gets caught in a chain of thoughts (and it probably will because this is part of meditation, training your mind to be present), gently step out of the thought stream and come back to the sensations of your breath. Each time it wanders off, continue patiently bringing it back again.
- If you’re aware of body discomfort, hunger pangs, sensations of hot or cold or an itch, just breathe and watch them without doing anything about them. There’s nowhere else to be, nothing else to do but notice your breath for five minutes.
- After five minutes, gently open your eyes and bring your attention back into the room. Notice the colors, sounds and textures around you. Stretch and breathe normally, noticing how much more vivid and acute your mind is and how much more calm, cool and connected you feel to yourself and the present moment.
A Final Word On 5-Minute Beginning Meditation Steps
There is no one-size-fits-all formula to meditate because there’s very little you have to do other than notice your thoughts with curiosity as you focus on your breathing. If your mind is still after meditating, if you feel relaxed and rested and if you have a calmer approach to stress, chances are you’re meditating correctly.
In the long term, you know meditation is working when you’re less reactive to job stressors, you worry less about the future and you’re more grounded in the here and now. You’re more adaptable and stress resilient, and your batteries feel recharged more of the time.
During uncertain times when you get overwhelmed, anxious or frustrated or things don’t turn out the way you hoped, these beginning meditation steps will bring your awareness to the present moment and inhibit your automatic negative reactions, giving you the space to feel calm, clarity, confidence, compassion and connection to yourself and others. And you will feel an increased ability to thrive in your personal life and career trajectory.