How To Practice a Mini-Meditation To Achieve Lasting Results

Enjoy your thirty-second retreat with your eyes open.

Only lazy wouldn’t have heard of meditation. It’s a method that involves mindfulness or deep focus to reduce stress and anxiety and achieve inner peace.

“Mindfulness isn’t a luxury. It’s a practice that trains your brain to be more efficient and better integrated, with less distractibility and improved focus. It minimizes stress and even helps you become your best self.” — Marsha Lucas, Ph.D, psychologist and author of Rewire Your Brain for Love.

And you could reach emotionally calm nirvana by being mindful while doing everyday tasks. But adding a few more conscious activities could be even more beneficial for your well-being. Because you are deliberately training your mind to do what you want it to do and not the other way round.

“Meditation isn’t about becoming a different person, a new person, or even a better person. It’s about training in awareness and getting a healthy sense of perspective.” — Headspace.

But meditation practise comes with its array of rules. You don’t have to follow them to a tee, but it’s a good idea if you to close your eyes; relax and find a comfortable position; find a place where no one will find you.

But what if your intentions are pure and you are more than happy to follow all those rules and rituals and good practices — but you cannot! You have no time, space, or opportunity. And please don’t throw stones at me. Because sometimes we genuinely don’t have time, space, or opportunity to meditate. We have busy lives, boisterous kids, communicative colleagues and hungry family members demanding a meal three times a day. How could they, I know.

Daily meditation practice helps you to train your mind to do what you want it to do and not the other way round.

And those of us with good intentions, but no time — do not despair — there is hope! A thirty-second mini-meditation has been a life saviour for me.

I meditate whenever I am not talking. Literally. I try to ground myself, calm down my thoughts, and do a simple breathing exercise to centre myself and find focus.

It looks like this: for about thirty seconds, I would breathe in deeply and breathe out slowly. I would then try not to think about anything. If thoughts linger, I either ignore them, and they go away. But if they persist, I label them as ‘thoughts’ or ‘emotions.’ After this simple and concise practice, I am as good as new. Well, almost.

When I am about to lose my temper — because my toddler is working on turning our beige carpet into a rainbow — I go into the kitchen. I pretend I am off to fetch a cloth and save the day. And I stay there practising my 30-second meditation for as long as it is safe while looking for that cloth.

My three favourite techniques are:

1. Breathe-and-count exercise

One of the simplest meditation techniques. You breathe in on a count of 4 and breathe out slowly on a count of 7. Counting itself feels grounding. Breathing deeply is filling your lungs with oxygen and as a result, helping your brain to think more clearly. And if there is a bit of anxiety involved, this technique would also help you calm down.

“Breathing is massively practical. It’s meditation for people who can’t meditate.” Belisa Vranich, a psychologist and author of the book “Breathe.”

2. Beads to the rescue

You do not need to buy special meditation beads or Mala Beads. All you need is a beaded necklace or a bracelet. Just like with prayer or meditation beads, concentrate on one bead at a time, count beads, move them in your fingers to help you centre your thoughts.

You could also use beads as anger or anxiety hairband/wristbands. Every time you feel like practising meditation — move your beaded bracelet to the other wrist. A slight discomfort of a bracelet being on your other wrist will remind you to meditate again.

3. Naming your emotions

This technique is my favourite by far. My thoughts are so active that sometimes all my intentions, all my experience and practice won’t do it for me. So labelling my emotions works as a shiny distraction to a curious intrepid child. Instead of climbing my anxiety ladder, my metaphorical child is busy naming emotions. My inner child is happy, and I am happy.

Meditation does not always require complete peace and quiet, special props, scented candles and eyes closed. You can meditate anywhere you want. You can practice while queueing, picking up your child from the daycare, or in-between Zoom calls at work. One thing I would say — consistency is key. If you want to achieve a lasting effect, — turn it into a daily habit.