Meditation is a way to stop our busy minds and become healthier mentally when we practice it once a day.
The way to find a sense of calm, peace, and balance can benefit both your emotional well-being and overall health when we practice meditation.
In your first couple of meditation sessions, it will be difficult when thoughts pop up, but once you get the hang of it, meditation becomes genuinely relaxing.
Dr. John McGrail, the president of Better You, Inc., explained the way to master meditation is through consistently practicing it once a day.
“In order for meditation to be effective, it has to be consistent,” McGrail said. “It is essential to meditate once a day, really, very few do it but it is so beneficial.”
Elisha Goldstein, psychologist, and co-founder of The Center for Mindful Living in West Los Angeles — which teaches classes on mindfulness and psychotherapy — also said if you continue to practice meditation once a day it can become very beneficial.
“Like anything else, when you practice something, the quicker to mastery,” Goldstein said. “If they want to create mastery around the mind and focus, then that (meditation) would make it more efficient.”
Goldstein is the co-founder of the CALM (Connecting Adolescents to Learning Mindfulness) program — along with his wife Stephanie Goldstein — where they work with teenagers ages 14-18 years old who are dealing with stresses of academic life, family and peer relationships, and the worries surrounding the future.
The highest suicide rates are among teenagers and young adults ages 10 to 35 years old, according to a medically reviewed article on MedicineNet.
The National Institute of Mental Health reported in 2019 that suicide is the second leading cause of death for people 10-24 years of age.
Goldstein hasn’t worked with any teenagers through the CALM program that were actively suicidal, but he deems it to be true that teenagers have the highest suicide rates.
“There has been heightened depression and anxiety which would then lend itself to more suicidal ideation,” Goldstein said. “Just by the statistics, that seems accurate.”
Brief mindfulness meditation helps with suicidal ideations, stress, and sleep disturbance, according to a study done by Arch Suicide Research.
It isn’t just anxiety and depression you can overcome through meditation practices daily, but with suicidal thoughts and being more present, rather than worrying about the future.
Yasmine Tatim, born in Brazil and a meditation and wellness coach in San Diego, Calif., is almost certain people should meditate once a day.
“The world would definitely be a much better place and in peace, because if you give your mind a break from overthinking, then you learn to gain some space between the narrative in your mind, which is constantly narrating your actions, and perceiving reality, ” Tatim said. “The first thing you’re going to learn through meditation is awareness.”
Tatim feels that if you practice meditation once a day, you improve control over your mind, and you disturb the thoughts that are on “auto-pilot”.
If we want to dictate our own experiences and get away from the unconscious patterns of beliefs that lead to stress, anxiety, and depression, learning to meditate is a great way to overcome that.
“You become the author of your experience,” said Tatim.
According to verywellmind.com, you should start by meditating once a day for five to 10 minutes, then when you get the hang of the practice, increase your meditation time to 20 minutes.
McGrail said it depends on the person when it comes to how long people should meditate.
“Everybody responds differently, everybody has different sensibilities,” McGrail said. “Generally speaking, when I’m teaching people how to do it (meditation), I have to start at shorter periods of time and then gradually build the length of the time until whatever is comfortable for them.”
McGrail teaches a practice called “Synthesis”, which is a combination of meditation and hypnotherapy and helps people overcome stressors in their life.
McGrail believes the general norm for meditation — if there is one — is 15 to 20 minutes per day, and a 2018 study done by Behavioral Brain Research, found that practicing meditation for 13 minutes per day for eight weeks improved attention, memory, and emotional regulation in non-experienced meditators.
Tatim said it isn’t about how long you meditate, it is how consistent you meditate.
“Length is not as important as frequency,” Tatim said. “What I’ve noticed is if you have never meditated, one minute is going to feel like forever.”
She said you won’t master meditation in a day, you have to practice it frequently and everybody has different comfort abilities when it comes to how long they meditate.
It is essential to meditate during this time because 67% of adults experience stress because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Something to recommend for meditation starters would be the Calm app, which has a variety of meditation practices, soothing music, sleep stories, and meditations to help you sleep.
The Calm app has helped me tremendously as I started meditating, and figuring out how to meditate on your own is so difficult. Try guided meditation to start and then when you feel comfortable enough, practice on your own.
According to thegoodbody.com, in 2019, the top 10 meditation apps generated $195 million in revenue, and since 2012, the number of people practicing meditation tripled.
Forty-one thousand teachers use the Calm app at home and in their classroom to help teach the curriculum.
Beyond the Calm app, there are other popular meditation apps that can help beginners as well.
Overall, meditation can help in so many aspects of your life, so buckle up for a journey of meditating once a day because it will be hard at first, but so beneficial down the road.
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