Kickstart a meditation habit with ‘10-second mindfulness’

Forget difficult hour-long meditations... making tiny (almost stupidly tiny) changes will be more lasting in the long run. Oliver Burkeman shows us how to kickstart a meditation habit with ‘10-second mindfulness’...

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Kickstart a meditation habit with ‘10-second mindfulness’

You probably don’t need telling that meditation is a proven path to peace of mind.

However, spending 20 minutes every morning focusing on your breath is a lot harder than it sounds – first because time’s so precious, but also because meditation can make each minute feel as long as an hour.

Mindfulness teacher Susan Piver recommends trying a 10-second practice instead, which she suggests you do upon waking, before you even get out of bed and get caught up in everything else.

‘Your mind will most likely want to fill with all the things that you must do on that day,’ she says. ‘But before giving way to that, allow kindness to arise in your heart. Make the aspiration to feel happiness and give happiness in the coming day, whatever that might mean to you. Then fully let it go. That’s it! Now get up, brush your teeth, and get your ass in gear.’

More inspiration:

Read Relax in the doing by Florence Parot on LifeLabs

Photograph: iStock

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