Are you searching for meditation and mindfulness techniques that are new or easy to do? Have you struggled to sit down and focus your mind and are looking for help with making it not only easy but really effective? What are the best meditation techniques for you? Daoist meditation? Transcendental meditation? Vipassana? Buddhist? Kriya Yoga? Zen (a type of Buddhist meditation)?

Meditation and mindfulness are popular topics these days, but many people struggle with actually meditating regularly. This is understandable when most of us run a hectic schedule; many people say they struggle to find the time. Is this an excuse? Get real with yourself, of course it is. Do you make time for social media browsing? How about regular media? Are they world renowned at helping you find and maintain inner peace? Most people have to admit they can replace something unproductive in their day with meditation.

The real reason most people find it hard to meditate is due to prioritising other things. Sit still for a couple of minutes or even half a minute and for many people the mind will start banging on about what needs to get done, how boring and unnecessary meditation is, what will I eat tonight? If you want to make the time you will find the time. It simply means prioritising meditation over something else. For example, do you get straight out of bed in the morning or lie in for a few or more minutes? Could you squeeze some meditation into that period? Or how about getting up even just 10 minutes earlier or going to bed 10 minutes later? Hold on, is 10 minutes enough? 10 minutes is enough to get you started, 2 hours in the morning will have a more profound effect but only those most dedicated will achieve this.

Just telling you this doesn’t really change much though, does it? This happens when there is no firm goal for the meditations. For example, meditation and mindfulness can help us calm the mind, give us power of anxiety and depression, help us sleep, improve our relationships and productivity, develop compassion and heal the body. Meditation and mindfulness have their different traditions and techniques and can range from very passive – for example just keeping your awareness on your breathing, to very active – seeing and feeling a therapeutic or spiritual environment or process, or chanting a mantra (one thought/feeling repeated consistently).

In order to get the most from your meditation practice, here is a little to do list:

1. Be clear about your intentions for meditating:

Understand what are your reason(s) for establishing an effective meditation practice. Write it/them down.

2. Choose a reasonable time to meditate:

Make sure you can meditate at least twice a week – making it the same time will give you an easy routine through the weeks and months.

3. Choose a meditation that works for you:

There are thousands of meditations available, many of them freely available on the internet. If you have a religious or spiritual orientation, you might prefer sticking to tradition (or maybe try something new). Stick with it for at least a week before trying something else, the effects are cumulative and you will develop your own mastery of the technique with time.

4. Cut out all distractions:

Meditation time is about meditation only. The mind will try and pull you out of it time and again. Turn off or silence your phone and computer and put them well out of reach. Don’t allow anything, even a busy environment like an office to distract you. Keep your awareness within.

5. Don’t get put off when your mind wanders:

Your mind will wander. Again and again. Keep bringing it back to your point of focus – the breathe, your awareness, the vision or mantra. This is what meditation involves, this is the process. The whole point is to allow the distraction and come back to single-pointed focus. Train your mind through your awareness, your focus.

Make it easy on yourself and subscribe to my 12 week online Vitality Meditations course, a collection of ancient Chinese and powerful Daoist principles and techniques to give you the power to regulate your system, to strengthen your core and still your mind. By committing to the 12 week course, with one new meditation released every week, you will train yourself to manage the mind and body in a completely new way that leaves you in a high level of control over your health and mind.