Adding Meditation To Your Morning Routine

If you’re feeling like the world has gone a bit mad and you’re not sure what to do next to keep your head above water, there may be an easy solution.

• Each morning when you wake up, how do you feel?
• Do you avoid the mirror or jump out of bed and embrace the new day?
• Are you energized or dreading going to work?
• Do you feel balanced and calm, or are your emotions ready to explode at any second?

You know what it’s like to go through a rough spell. You’ve been there before, right? When tough times hit, how did you pull yourself together again? If you're feeling stressed or down in the dumps, it may be time to focus on improving your mental health. And if that’s the case (or if it’s not), adding meditation to your morning routine may be just the thing.

Meditation can be done almost anywhere, so it doesn’t require any special setup. You can even do it while travelling. With the stresses of travel—the early morning taxi rides, packed security queues, delayed flights and long lines at the carousel—meditation is a great way to release tension. It can also help you deal with jet lag and the often noisy or uncomfortable environments hotels, airports or restaurants present.

Start small by meditating for just a few minutes, and work up to 30 minutes or more if you have time.The good news is that the benefits of meditation are cumulative, so you can still reap the rewards even if you don’t have 30 minutes to dedicate. With that in mind, it’s a good practice to start small and work your way up. So if all your day allows for is five minutes, just give yourself five minutes. If you have time for more, great—that’s awesome! But don’t let the fear of not doing enough stop you from doing what your schedule allows for.

First, a few misconceptions to clear up:

• Meditation is not about sitting very still in a state of complete silence.
• It’s about getting comfortable, closing your eyes and focusing on your breath.
• You don’t have to sit cross-legged on the floor or get rid of all noise around you.
• You can practice meditation while brushing your teeth, cooking breakfast or waiting for the bus.
• Meditation is an attitude that you can take off the cushion and integrate into everyday life.

In terms of technique, meditation is simply learning how to focus your attention on one thing (e.g., the breath) and not being distracted by any other thoughts that may arise in your mind (e.g., “I hope I don’t get fired today!”). If you find yourself distracted by thoughts or other sensations, gently bring yourself back to focusing on the object of concentration (the breath). This process repeats over and over again whenever we meditate; it gets easier with time as our minds gradually become calmer and more focused from regular practice and reduce their tendency toward distraction.

There are many different types of meditation, so you might want to experiment with a few before deciding on one that works for you.

You can experiment with guided meditations. Guided meditations involve following the instructions of someone else who is leading the meditation. You could find these on a phone app or YouTube. Start by listening to the instructions and practice following along as best you can at first. Sometimes it helps to close your eyes when doing guided meditations, but keep them open if it makes things easier for you in the beginning. You can also try using a mantra in your meditation practice. Mantras are words or sounds repeated silently or aloud during meditation. Some teachers recommend repeating mantras when sitting still feels difficult or impossible because we believe that some mantras have special spiritual power, energy, and influence over our mental states (so they help us deal with distracting thoughts). As you repeat them again and again, they become more powerful in their effects on our mind and body as well as our environment (and thus how we perceive our reality).

For beginners looking at what type of meditation most interests them from an intellectual standpoint (rather than just trying out things blindly), there are two main categories - mindfulness based practices such as breath awareness which focus on being present without judgment vs attention training techniques like zazen where concentration plays a large role in developing one's inner strength through focus exercises without attachment.

Adding meditation to your morning routine can help ground you before the day begins.

Have you ever felt like something was missing from your morning routine?

After waking up, getting ready and eating breakfast, did it feel like some part of the process was still incomplete?

One easy way to start each day off in a positive way is by adding meditation to your routine.

Incorporating even five or ten minutes of meditation into your morning can help you focus on what you want out of the day, create calm and focus for yourself, and even help give you a more restful sleep.

Meditation doesn't have to be complicated or time-consuming. You can meditate anywhere; sitting on a couch, standing at a bus stop or traveling on the train. There are also multiple types of meditation that can be done by anyone at any level. The important thing is setting aside quiet time for yourself and letting go of distractions so that you can focus on being present in the moment while becoming grounded before starting your day.