Thread: How much meditation is enough?

I think those are respectable meditation periods. But I have to be honest....I do not meditate at all. I have never been one to actually block out meditation sessions like that. I do practice T'ai Chi every morning, though, and I have learned instead over the years to maintain a mindfulness throughout my day, at least as much as possible.

I think meditation sessions are a very good thing. Try to carry that mindfulness around with you between sessions. You'll be surprised how many times during your day you can turn off the world for a minute and look within.

I try to be more mindfull during the day, but this is more difficult than meditating. I can stay mindfull for maybe 3\4 minutes then I turn to the autopilot for hours.
Do you use a any trick or something to remain mindfull over the day?

I try to be more mindfull during the day, but this is more difficult than meditating. I can stay mindfull for maybe 3\4 minutes then I turn to the autopilot for hours.
Do you use a any trick or something to remain mindfull over the day?

Originally Posted by nia02

Do you use a any trick or something to remain mindfull over the day?

I do. I am in a private office for 10 hours each day answering calls and responding to emails. It gets hectic at times but there are also slow periods. I have a small yellow post-it sticky on the phone in front of me. When it catches my attention....which it does often during the day.....I sit back and grab a quick but meaningful mindful moment.

There....I just did it....less than a minute.

These mindful moments add up. Put something in your pocket or in your bag if you carry one....something specifically designed to remind you to grab a mindful moment.

I feel that if you are aiming to meditate for a certain number of minutes per day, you are not approaching meditation with a healthy perspective.

Meditate for as long as you feel is right. It should be about the quality of the experience, rather than the quantity.

I do. I am in a private office for 10 hours each day answering calls and responding to emails. It gets hectic at times but there are also slow periods. I have a small yellow post-it sticky on the phone in front of me. When it catches my attention....which it does often during the day.....I sit back and grab a quick but meaningful mindful moment

Great idea I'll try that too

I feel that if you are aiming to meditate for a certain number of minutes per day, you are not approaching meditation with a healthy perspective.

Meditate for as long as you feel is right. It should be about the quality of the experience, rather than the quantity

In fact I don't force myself to meditate for 15 minutes, this is the time I can, in general, enjoy meditating before getting bored. when I started i could only do it for 5 minutes, then after a while this time was no longer enought so I increased the time until I got what I do now.

but my original question was: how long shuld one meditate per day to start seeing results? i know that it can change from person to person, but is there a general estimate?

Originally Posted by nia02

how long shuld one meditate per day to start seeing results?

It's a tough one to quantify I guess. Your question has me pondering the reason for our meditation.......because I'm thinking that we know we are meditating enough when we start to see that it is helping our lucidity. I know that when I realized that my mindfulness exercises were working.......I doubled my effort and I really saw the result both in my daytime awareness and in my awareness in my dreams....both lucid and non-lucid. I am beginning to understand, though, that it is not how hard you work in each session but how persistent you are over time with those sessions.

Do you feel as though your meditation is helping you to achieve lucidity now?

I have read that folks who are serious about meditation try to do 30 minute sessions. Perhaps you should try to find ways to stretch that period of enjoyable mindfulness and see if it leads you closer to your lucidity goals. I still think, however, that 15 minutes twice a day is a respectable meditation protocol, especially if you are able to stick with it over time. Let's try to have this conversation 6 months or a year from now and compare notes about our successes.