Mindful Meditation Exercise

1. 

   Sit straight on a chair in a darkened room. Close your eyes, breathe naturally, and relax your entire body, letting go of all tension in your face, neck, legs, arms, and feet.

2. When you feel your body is relaxed, start to focus on your breath. I do this by focusing my attention on my abdomen rising and falling. Focus on breathing in and breathing out. Notice the thoughts that come into your head, and instead of holding on to them or judging yourself for having them, keep returning your focus to your breath. Experience this for the time that you’ve allotted for it.

I recommend starting your meditation practice by doing a mindful­ness meditation for 5 or 10 minutes, or, if you want to, up to half an hour. My experience with meditation is that the more I’ve medi­tated, the more I want to meditate. It relaxes me as well as helps me to be mindful and more present in my daily life.

I’ve mentioned that I took a course in mindfulness meditation at UCLA. If you’d like to do a guided meditation in which some­one leads you through a meditation, the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center has made several user-friendly meditations avail­able online. Go to http://marc.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=29 and click the “Guided Meditations” tab.

I generally do my meditation when my day is done, when I’m ready for bed. Prior to creating this practice, I would fall asleep watching television. Now I find that I get so much benefit from the peace that comes with meditating that it feels almost barbaric to spoil the tranquility with mindless television afterwards. Meditating adds a very restful quality to my life as I come to the close of each day.