The Ultimate Guide to Meditation for Beginners

In this article I hope to give you the ultimate guide to meditation for beginners by detailing the benefits of meditation, explaining some major concepts surrounding mindfulness meditation, and explaining how to implement what you learn!

Part I. Why Meditate?

There are many reasons why you might be interested in meditation. In recent years clinical studies proving the benefits of meditation for a vast array of ailments have drastically multiplied. Currently “there’s evidence that [meditation] may reduce:

• Blood pressure

• Symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome

• Flare-ups in ulcerative colitis

• Symptoms of anxiety and depression

• Insomnia

Some research suggests that meditation may physically change the brain and body and could potentially help to improve many health problems and promote healthy behaviors” (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016) 

The purported health benefits are plentiful, and the evidence backing them grows every day. In my personal experience with meditation, I have seen noticeable improvements in stress, anxiety, depression, and concentration, but after reading the literature I also know that I am reaping benefits from meditation that extend past my emotional state.

Some of the most impactful studies on meditation were conducted by Dr. Sara Lazar at Harvard, who discovered that long-term meditators have more gray matter in the frontal cortex of their brains in comparison to their non-meditating counterparts. In an interview with the Washington Post, Dr. Lazar said, “It’s well-documented that our cortex shrinks as we get older – it’s harder to figure things out and remember things. But in this one region of the prefrontal cortex, 50-year-old meditators had the same amount of gray matter as 25-year-olds” (Shulte, 2015).

What brought me to meditation in the first place was the search for inner peace, and I am still on that journey, but it feels good to know that every time I practice I am also making an investment into my future self, my longevity. These benefits are available to anyone at any time, all you need is yourself, some initiative, and a little guidance to get you started.

Part II. The Importance of Mindset

The key when learning to meditate (or learning anything, really) is mindset. If this article has managed to encourage you to try meditation and you set aside the time to practice all the while doubting that you will be able to do it, you are doing yourself a disservice. This was exactly my experience in the beginning, and because I didn’t immediately catch on, my failure only confirmed my belief. This confirmation bias led me to give up on meditation for years.

The mindset with which I originally approached meditation is what we call a “fixed mindset.” “A “fixed mindset” [is] the belief that your abilities are fixed” (Aaron Swartz, 2012). On the other hand, a “growth mindset” is the belief that the more challenging something is, the more growth and learning we can derive from it. 

In order to adopt a growth mindset, attempt to take on challenges optimistically by remembering that you will experience the most growth by learning new things. Do you ever get a task assigned by your manager or teacher and immediately feel yourself shutting down because you are not sure how to do it? Been there! Next time this happens, remind yourself that you have the capacity to learn new things, but that will only happen by actually doing them. Say yes fearlessly! Your ability will follow. 

“The fixed mindset says, “What if you fail? You’ll be a failure.” The growth mindset replies, “Most successful people had failures along the way.”” -Carol Dweck

Part III. Emptying the Mind vs. Mindfulness

Looking back with 20/20 vision I believe that it was semantics that led me astray when I first attempted meditation. I was instructed by a friend to “empty the mind” when I meditated, perhaps you’ve heard similar instructions, but I think that “emptying the mind” is not the way to suggest meditation to a beginner. In any case, “Emptying the mind” is not an accurate description of what meditation is about, it’s more like a loose way to speak of its potential effect. So how can we better understand meditation? Enter “mindfulness.”

Mindfulness sounds like it suggests just about the opposite of “emptying the mind,” but what does it actually mean? The Cambridge English Dictionary defines mindfulness as “the practice of being aware of your body, mind, and feelings in the present moment thought to create a feeling of calm.”  Though accurate, I can’t help but feel there's some major unpacking to be done when it comes to beginners grasping the definition of mindfulness. What does mindfulness have to do with mediation and how do you implement it? 

When you set aside time to meditate, the goal is to be aware of your thoughts in a way that most humans are not on a regular basis. Through mindfulness meditation, you become so present that you become fully conscious of what is going on in your mind while you are practicing. The result is that racing thoughts slow or melt away because racing thoughts aren’t usually purposeful. When the racing thoughts subside the overall outcome gives the illusion that we are emptying the mind, and in a way we are, but what I wish was explained to me, in the beginning, was what exactly we were emptying from our minds. With mindfulness, we empty the mind of automatic, unconscious thinking and fill the mind with our attention, our non-judgemental focus. 

Without practice, most of us go through the day without realizing what we are thinking about (this is often the case even with practice). But given that the thoughts that are going through our head are essentially narrating our life and setting the tone and mood of our thoughts and behavior, don't you agree that it is of the utmost importance that we are fully aware of what is going through our head as often as possible? 

After I first started meditating regularly I realized that I was saying awful things to myself; it was a dark time in my life, I was severely depressed and anxious and I picked up meditating as a last resort because I had tried everything else. After about a month of meditating, I began to hear my thoughts outside of mediation as if I developed an additional sense. Suddenly my anxiety began to make sense: of course, I was going to have low self-esteem if I had been talking to myself day in and day out like a masochistic drill sergeant.  

So what does mindfulness actually look like? Mindfulness is something you can practice at any time of your waking life, meditating or not. In my opinion, however, setting aside time to meditate is the best way to cultivate mindfulness in order to bring it over to daily life. 

Part IV. How to Meditate?

When meditating there are several ways to practice mindfulness, but I suggest the following. Start your mediation with your eyes open, relaxed, and looking at a fixed point. Then, take five deep breaths ensuring that your exhale is longer than your inhale. On your last exhale, close your eyes.

Begin your practice by settling into your body and feeling the physical sensations that arise. After a few breaths, do a full-body scan working your way down from the crown of your head to the tips of your toes. This is around the time you might start noticing the tendency of the mind to stray. Ideally, the body scan is one slow, attentive, fluid motion. You want to be aware of how your body is feeling at every level, but avoid getting caught up in thoughts about how you are feeling. Once you are done with the body scan you can settle in for your mindfulness meditation. 

You will need an anchor to keep you centered, I suggest focusing on your breath. In the beginning, it is recommended to count your breath up to ten and then start over (i.e. one as you inhale, two as you exhale, three as you inhale… all the way up to ten). By counting the breaths in this way you will easily be able to see if your mind has wandered if you suddenly realize that you’re counting 23, 24, 25 etc. It might sound easy to sit down, shut your eyes, and count your breath for 5 or 10 minutes, but if you’ve never done it you’ll likely find that is surprisingly difficult. When the mind wanders, thoughts take over, and we are no longer present for what’s going on in the mind.

So what happens when a thought crosses your mind when meditating? There are several techniques. If you are able to catch the thought before it sweeps you away, do your best to watch it without commenting on it or judging it. The less we can interact with the thought and accept that it's a part of who we are, then the less it will distract us. If you're meditating and suddenly catch yourself deep in thought counting upwards of 100, same deal! Try your best to simply return to your breath. Repeat this process until you’ve finished meditating.

Above all try to remind yourself that mindfulness meditation is a practice that may increase or decrease in difficulty on a daily basis due to a myriad of factors. It may take weeks or months to experience profound changes from meditating, but you will likely feel small differences on a day to day basis. The important thing is showing up for yourself and being patient with yourself. With time and consistency there will be changes. If you would like to learn more strategies to take you from surviving to thriving make sure to sign up for my upcoming free course: The 5 Simples Shifts!

Schulte, B. (2019, May 3). Harvard neuroscientist: Meditation not only reduces stress, here's how it changes your brain. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/05/26/harvard-neuroscientist-meditation-not-only-reduces-stress-it-literally-changes-your-brain/. 

Swartz, A. (n.d.). Raw Thought. Believe you can change (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought). http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dweck. 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2016, April). Meditation: In Depth. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/meditation-in-depth.