Life requires a certain level of balance from the hectic moments. Meditation such as an easy 20 minute mindfulness meditation exercise has a soothing effect that can calm down your body and help you gain that much-needed life balance.
In addition, it has multiple benefits on your mental and physical health.
While meditating, the chaotic parts of life fade in the background as you focus on feeding your mind with positivity.
To recalibrate your mind, you can embrace mindfulness meditation and make it a routine for a certain period—helping reduce depression, anxiety, and stress and improving your sleep patterns.
Many people lack a concrete schedule to manage family, work, education, or other duties they have to perform in their lives.
This burden adds to their stress because they can’t create time to let it out or have some time to clear up their minds.
However, meditation is an excellent way to release these anxieties and reduce life’s stress with minimal time commitment, as one can spare as little as 20 minutes and still be on the right track.
One can choose to perform mindful meditation anytime, whether early in the morning, at night before going to bed, or take small breaks when working.
As a beginner, you may have a hard time calming down your mind and bringing it to the point of focus when meditating.
Guided meditations come in handy to help you get through your sessions, and you can perfect the routines with practice.
You can also decide to follow unguided meditation and yield similar benefits, but you must be patient with the results. The most important thing is to take your time, check-in with yourself, and understand what works for you.
So would you like to balance your life through mindful meditation?
Follow this guide, and for guided meditation routines, you can perform in 20 minutes for inner peace and calming effects.
The 20 Minute Mindfulness Meditation Exercise
Invite Meditation Moments
The first mindfulness meditation exercise involves intentionally committing to your mindful meditation practice. It starts with sensational in and out breaths, drawn profoundly and consciously.
Pay attention to the movements on your belly as you breathe in and out. The exercise should trigger your diaphragm to fall and rise with each deep breath you take and release.
The belly movements should respond to the collapsing and contraction in a harmonized rhythm with your breath.
At this point, channel all your attention to your body’s sensations as you take deep breaths.
Choose the Position Right for You
This step allows you to select the position in which you’re most comfortable.
If you started the session sitting, you could stand or sit differently. Whichever position feels comfortable for you, remain mindful of the contact point connecting you to the floor.
It may be the chair you are sitting on or your body parts touching it. Activate your awareness regarding contact to help you connect with your environment.
Track your body’s sensations on the floor. Notice how your feet, soles, buttocks, ankles, or other body parts relate to the ground beneath them.
Maintain this awareness and be attentive to each body part and contact point as they connect to the ground at that particular moment.
Feel the support around you and blend in the impressions of contact coming from the earth.
Scan Up from Your Sit Bone Region
Perform a gentle scan to assess your sit bone region, moving from your innermost core to your chest. It is now time to check-in and feel your body’s impressions.
Look out for any tensed parts of your body as you continue to breathe in and out.
If you feel the tension in any body part, invite relaxation through deep breaths and listen as your body comes alive. At this moment, invite your body to rest and let go.
Begin Focusing on Your Breath
At this point, turn your attention to the breathing sensations. Notice the most prominent and salient moments as you breathe. Keep your mind rested and note the sensations in your body. Continue breathing in and out.
Let your mind rest in between the in and out breaths, paying attention to every slight change in your body’s tension. Stay connected to every complete cycle while noticing the sensations they bring. Rest in between the breath cycles to bind your breaths with the sensations.
Notice if you can remain attentive to the current activity inside your mind. Examine the level of focus in your mind and invite moments of sitting. Pay attention to your thoughts.
Maintain mindful awareness of your mind’s focus and the thought formation process. Make gentle appreciation and notice that your mind is made for this function. Recognize the thoughts arising and appreciate their formation noticing that you are the reason they happened.
Notice the Thoughts
Recognize the thoughts compassionately and gently. Try to let go of them and relay your mind back to the contact point you chose at the beginning of your mindfulness meditation session. Start connecting with the breathing patterns and sensations attached to your body at this.
This practice can help you become more aware of your thoughts and the thinking process. Let yourself maintain contact with the rising thoughts, sensations, or emotions.
Remain in this state of awareness and sit through it for the moment. Focus and see if the arising thoughts are noticeable. Practice releasing these thoughts and regaining conscious sensations that take you back to the point of contact where your body is in sync with the ground you are meditating.
Thoughts will always arise in your mind throughout the meditation process as they continue to develop. Practice meeting them with compassion in a friendly and gentle way.
Whenever a thought comes up, and you notice it, you invite your mind to become part of the moment and become aware of its existence. With practice, your mind remains conscious of the thought throughout the breathing sensations. This feeling proceeds even after you sit and invite your body to rest.
Treat this moment with compassion and gentleness. Avoid treating the thought harshly or critically. Acknowledge that you are “thinking” and remain attentive to the breaths and sitting sensations. Take this moment to rest easy.
Start Visualizing
The visualization process can take part in different forms. For instance, visualize that every thought forming in your mind is a cloud in the blue sky. Notice the formation but leave it to gently float away, like the clouds drift off in the sky.
Another example is imagining that your thoughts are like flowing water in a stream. On the stream, you may notice floating leaves and twigs. Visualize a flowing stream and gently associate this movement with the thought formation process.
When you picture your deepest mind as energy on its own or like a stream, then your rising thoughts can be visualized as floating twigs or leaves. Notice as they float past your contact point and allow them to drift and fade away.
These thoughts will come back when we invite them later in readiness to embrace them.
However, at this moment, it is best to let them drift away as we practice mindfulness meditation, coupled with recognizing, noticing, and gently focusing back to our initial point of contact between our body parts and the ground.
Our focus is also drawn to sitting sensations and breathing synchronization.
As you draw closer to closing this meditation session, notice the body’s ability to build up feelings of well-being at this point of the session.
At this moment, put your hand across on the left side of your chest, notice your heartbeat rhythm, and appreciate your body with this self-compassion gesture.
Notice the balance between your body and mind and the energy built around you throughout the process. Appreciate its presence and recognize its help in achieving your mindfulness wellness.
Whether your body is calmly resting or caught amidst struggles, create a gratitude sense and let it be genuine. Focus this gratitude on the energy within and around you, which helps you experience greater awareness and moments of well-being.
This awareness is like a support system as you seek to acquire more righteousness or relate with others more deeply. As you journey through the day’s journey, may you remain brave, at ease, and safe until you reach the goal of mindfulness meditation.
How Long Should I Meditate?
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a popular clinical intervention associated with mindfulness. It recommends daily sessions lasting between 40 to 45 minutes as you practice meditation.
For Transcendental Meditation, you will require two daily sessions lasting about twenty minutes each. The Relaxation Response is another form of intervention pioneered by Benson in 1975. Meditations are recommended to last approximately 20 minutes.
If you are interested in a meditation focused on breathing patterns, Shamantha is a traditional meditation carried out by nuns and monks in Tibetan monasteries.
It lasts 10 to 15 minutes and includes stretches. The nuns and monks practiced it multiple times every day, but the results are not defined by how long or short your sessions last.
Meditations and physical exercise or workouts are similar in that the time of practice differs for different people.
No particular or optimal length of time is perfect for everyone. Mindfulness meditation has no exact limit of time or number of sessions you can practice per day.
Whether meditating or exercising physically, the time you spend should be enough to physically challenge you but not leave your body exhausted or demoralized.
When Should I Meditate?
Your schedule is the biggest determinant of the suitable time of the day to meditate. Ensure that the time you choose blends into your routine without interfering with other activities.
The biggest question about meditation is whether or not it should be the first thing one does after waking up. The answer to this depends on the kind of meditation you choose to practice.
Most people regard morning meditation as convenient because it helps them mindfully start their day.
They also consider the morning routine a technique for self-care practice that refreshes their minds before starting their daily routine.
However, you may find it more convenient to practice mindfulness meditation at night or in the afternoon. It is a healthy way to balance the activities you handle during the day. Nights are also considered peaceful and quiet.
Every time of the day has its benefits and perks. Before sticking to a concrete routine, practice at different times to know what blends on with your schedule and other preferences.
Wrapping It Up
At this point, it’s evident that meditation is beneficial to all people. It settles down your body and calms your mind to the point of focus.
As a beginner, you should start with a flexible time limit and routines that are not too complicated. Avoid pressuring your body to perform practices that make it uncomfortable.
The most encouraging part is that even when 20 minutes is all you have to spare, you can achieve mindfulness meditation in the morning, noon, work break, or evening.
This time is enough to offer you the needed benefits.
For more meditation tips check out my 4-7-8 Breathing technique.
Also, check out our The 10 Minute Mindfulness Meditation Exercise. Teach your children about mindfulness with these 10 Mindfulness Activities You Can Try Today
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