It Only Takes Two Minutes to Learn to Meditate

No preamble — just five easy steps to get started and be meditating in two minutes.

There are a million posts on the benefits of meditation, so I’ll skip over all of that and get right to it.

Here’s what you need to do to be meditating two minutes from now:

1. Sit — find a chair that keeps your hips slightly above your knees in a place where you can have relative peace and quiet. Keep your back straight.
2. Set a timer — I recommend ten minutes. Use your phone or smartwatch.
3. Close your eyes, or don’t — you don’t have to. If you don’t, then pick a spot on the floor five or ten feet ahead of you and look at it.
4. Breathe — don’t overthink this. You’re already breathing, so just keep doing that.
5. Count your exhales — count up to ten, then start over at one. Repeat.

You are now meditating.

• If you lose count, try not to be frustrated. Start over again at one. This will happen.
• If a thought of any kind enters your mind, notice it, then return to counting your breaths.
• If you notice you’ve counted past ten, start over at one.
• When the timer goes off you are finished.

Repeat daily, or any time you wish to be reconnected with reality, free of the infinite madness maker that can be the human mind.