Is a Few Minutes of Meditation Better Than More? |
Standard wisdom around meditation tends to prescribe 20 minutes or more per session.
A recent study shows long-time meditators use longer sessions, but beginners are best served by short bursts.
Consistency is key, but skipped days are okay, and 5 minutes several days a week might be all you need.
Over many years, I tried to meditate with a baby in my lap (not recommended), in yoga class, before getting out of bed, after getting into bed, in meditation groups, alone, and even (literally) in the closet. It never worked. I could rarely make it to 20 minutes. But even if my mind wandered like crazy, I thought I had to sit there for that full, magical meditative 20 minutes.
Turns out, that was the wrong approach, according to a new study published by Insight Timer (the most utilized free digital meditation app), which spins what we thought about meditation on its head (pun intended).
Today, it makes sense nothing worked to jumpstart my meditation practice until my kids were older (or at least toilet-trained). Then, I gave Headspace a try—a meditation app that offers ten days of free, ten-minute meditations. Even ten minutes........