Here’s a collection of tips & research to help you build a meditation habit. 

In our meditation research, 75% said meditation improved their focus at work.#liftchat

April 3, 2013

Data-based Tips & Research

Lift Data Insights: Why you should start with short, daily sessions, your chances of keeping a streak and meditation app recommendations from Lifters.

Lift Data Insights II: Does the time of day you meditate matter, what positions are most popular among Lifters and the most popular meditation styles.

5 Meditation Tips for Beginners by Dr. Alice Boyes, a Psychology Today article featuring data from Lift.

Insights from Quora users on how to build a meditation habit.

User Video Tips

Buster Benson & Tony Stubblebine exchange tips on getting a meditation habit to stick including making it part of your daily routine, using an app and incorporating meditation as a booster for other habits.

Alyson Madrigan explains how she started meditating and the impact it has on her personal and professional life.

John Muldoon tells us why meditation has improved his business success.

Jason Shen explains why you should experiment with different meditation styles until you find the right one for you.

Search for #MarchMeditation on Twitter to read more tips, articles and user stories from the 2013 March Meditation Challenge.

We’ve received a lot of questions about how, exactly, one should meditate since launching the March Meditation Challenge. We asked Lifters in the Meditate habit to share the techniques they use.

Time of Day

Rise and shine, most people on Lift meditate in the morning. 

Does the time of day affect how quickly you benefit from meditation? Our data says not really. Two-thirds of all survey respondents started feeling benefits within a week and that percentage stayed constant regardless of what time of day you meditated. 

Position

Three-fourths of survey respondents reported that they sit on the floor or a chair when they meditate. If you don’t like to sit, you can lie down, walk, stand, or do yoga. One person reported meditating as they swam. The most important thing is to find a position that you’re comfortable staying in for the duration of the session. It’s hard enough to maintain focus without your foot falling asleep! 

The next most popular position after sitting was lying down. Surely you’d fall asleep, especially if you are one of the 86% of people who close their eyes when they meditate, right?  If you do fall asleep, take comfort in knowing that more than half of survey respondents (58%) had fallen asleep during a meditation session at least once. 

Styles

Choosing a style of meditation may seem like the most overwhelming decision to make when you first start meditating but it doesn’t have to be. Don’t be anxious about about choosing the right style immediately. Experiment with different styles, apps and techniques until you find what works best for you. 

“What style of meditation do you practice?”

We see all sorts of styles on Lift. The most popular include:

• Counting your breath: great for beginners.
• Guided meditation: following the instructions of a teacher in person or via an app/recording. Instructors will take you through various awareness excercises like counting your breath, scanning your body, noticing sounds and visuals around you. Great for beginners.
• Mindfulness Meditation: Defined by expert Jon Kabat-Zinn as ‘moment to moment non-judgmental awareness.’ Related styles are Vispassana/Buddhist. 
• Zazen: Seated meditation with roots in Zen Buddhism.
• Yoga incorporates meditation, too. 

Click on the terms in the word cloud to go to a google search of the word. To learn more about different meditation styles, you can also browse the check-in notes in the Meditate habit & ask questions using the comment feature. pjk

Length of Session

We mentioned this in our last post, but when you’re just getting started begin with small sessions and build up the duration over time. Most people on Lift meditated between 3-5 minutes per session when they first began the habit.

Don’t feel like you need to work up to a crazy session length, either.  Lifters meditate an average of 16.8 minutes per session.

Need more help?

44% of people who signed up for the March Meditation Challenge are meditating regularly for the first time. The same percentage of people reported feeling frustrated during their sessions.

What do first-timers struggle with?

• Fitting the habit into their current schedule
• Not enjoying their session/getting bored
• Fidgeting or being unable to concentrate during a session
• Anxiety over whether they’re doing it “right” 

You might be surprised to learn that frustration with your meditation practice didn’t correlate to experience level: you had a 50% chance of feeling frustrated regardless of how long you’d practiced meditation. As a wise Lifter told us:

“Give it time – meditation is a process, not a goal. Follow your own rhythm & you’ll get the results you need.”

If reading this post helped you, please share it on Twitter.

Meditation has the power to change lives but many people say it’s too hard to do. We think the habit is just as easy to pick up as any other daily habit, maybe even easier.

It’s as Easy as Taking Your Vitamins

The first few days of building a habit are hard–our minds and bodies naturally revolt against change–but there comes a time when you adapt to the new behavior and momentum starts to move you forward instead of push you backward.

When does this happen in Meditation? Well, we’re not going to make any wild claims about how long it takes to form the habit but we do know that it gets easier to meditate after the 11th day of daily meditation.

To find this out, we graphed the likelihood that someone would continue their daily streak over time. In the Meditate habit, 90% of people with an 11 day streak went on to have a 12 day streak. The odds remained in their favor after that date. 

How does Meditation compare to habits listed in our Easiest Habits category (which we selected because they had the most 21+ day streaks)?  

It’s almost as easy to get into the habit of daily meditation as it is to floss. You’re as likely to keep meditating as you are to take your vitamins daily. People find it harder to drink more water and eat breakfast every day than they do to meditate.

Consistency is King.

Half of people who meditate on Lift do it at least once a day. We found this out by surveying Lifters in the Meditate habit. We also asked for their advice for newbies.The most popular tip they gave was to practice daily and not to judge a session by its quality or length.  

Meditation seems to defy the Deliberate Practice rule we love at Lift: that you get more out of consistency if you have strong fundamentals. We’re sure that fundamentals help but frequency trumps all in meditation.

I find it helpful to have more frequent, rather than longer, sittings.

Missing a day is much worse than having an ineffective day.

Even if your meditation does not go well it’s still worth doing. Athletes don’t set a personal best each time they train.

Start with Short Sessions

Another common tip was to start small. It’s okay to just count a few breaths or meditate for a minute or less.  Most people meditated between 3-5 minutes per session when they first began the habit.

Don’t feel like you need to work up to a crazy session length, either.  Lifters meditate an average of 16.8 minutes per session.

Use an App to Be More Successful

59% of people who meditate on Lift enlist the help of an app. In fact, app use correlated to more frequent meditation. 62% of people who meditated more than 3 days a week used an app compared to 50% of people who meditated 3 days a week or less. 

These were some of the apps mentioned:

• Headspace 
• Buddhify
• Meditation
• Insight Timer
• Mindfulness Meditation
• Equanimity
• Omvana

Don’t want to download another app? Many Lifters just use Apple’s iOS timer. Also consider reading a book on meditation, listening to an audio recording, attending a class, center or retreat or finding a buddy or mentor to practice with you; all of these strategies were highly recommended by Lifters in the Meditate habit. 

We’ll post additional tips on Twitter over the next month and feel free to share your own by tweeting with the hashtag #MarchMeditation. Oh, and don’t forget to sign up for the March Meditation Challenge. 

Notes:

1. In the survey we asked people if they used an app to help them meditate and some folks answered “Lift.” We should have clarified that we meant apps in addition to Lift.