How long should you meditate? An honest answer
How many minutes to meditate as a beginner, when to add more, and why regularity matters more than length.
The honest answer is: for as long as you will actually do it tomorrow as well. There is no magic number of minutes. Regular short sittings do more than occasional long ones, and the best length is the one you can keep up.
That said, it helps to have a number to start from. Here is a sensible path.
If you are starting out: two to five minutes
Begin with two minutes, once a day, for a week. It sounds too short to matter. Its job is not to transform you. Its job is to make sitting down a normal part of your day, with so little effort required that you never have a reason to skip it.
When two minutes feels easy and you find yourself wanting to continue, move to five.
Once it is a habit: ten to twenty minutes
Most people who meditate regularly settle somewhere between ten and twenty minutes a day. There is a practical reason. The first few minutes of any sitting are often spent simply arriving, as the day’s momentum runs down. A longer sitting leaves time after that for the mind to settle.
Many of the best-known mindfulness courses ask for considerably more, often forty-five minutes a day, and much of the research on meditation is based on programs like those. Shorter daily practice has been studied less, though the studies that exist suggest that ten minutes or so a day is still worthwhile. Longer practice does seem to bring more benefit, so let the length grow when it suits your life.
When to add time
Add time when the current length feels comfortable and a little short, not when you feel you ought to. Go up in small steps: two minutes to five, five to ten, ten to fifteen. Stay at each step for at least a week.
If a longer sitting starts to feel like a chore and you begin skipping days, drop back to the last length that felt easy. Going back is not failure. A habit that survives is worth more than an ambitious one that does not.
Once a day or twice?
Once is fine. If you have the appetite for more, two shorter sittings, for example ten minutes in the morning and ten in the evening, are often easier to fit in than one long one, and they bring you back to practice twice a day.
Does the time of day matter?
Less than people think. Morning suits many because the day has not yet filled up. Evening suits others because it helps them wind down. The best time is the one you can protect. Attaching the sitting to something you already do, such as after brushing your teeth or before your first coffee, makes it much more likely to happen.
Signs you are overdoing it
Meditation should not be an endurance test. Shorten your sittings, or take a few days off, if you notice that you dread sitting down, that you are forcing yourself through physical pain, or that sitting leaves you more agitated than before. If meditation regularly stirs up strong distress, speak to a doctor or an experienced teacher.
A simple plan
- Week 1: two minutes a day
- Weeks 2 to 3: five minutes a day
- Weeks 4 to 6: ten minutes a day
- After that: stay at ten, or grow toward twenty if you want to
The meditation timer will keep the time and ring a bell at the end, so you never have to look at a clock.