I’m not sure if this is a factual question or a matter of opinion. But with mindfulness meditation (the process of trying to become aware of a moment w/o judging it) people are generally taught to meditate for 20-30 minutes at a time 1x a day.
However, how does this compare to doing it 5x a day for 5 minutes each, or 2x a day for 10 minutes each? Is there a difference in outcomes? Has anyone studied various methods of doing this (best time of day, best time period, how often to do it)? Or does it not really matter?
“The process of trying to become aware of a moment w/o judging it” ? That is not my idea of transcendental meditation. For me, meditation is the process of “transcending” the “now” (or reality) and trying to achieve closeness with the spiritual part of oneself. And I do it for at least 20 minutes. If you’re in “the zone,” you’re not truly aware of the time. I question whether you can benefit from it if you’re concerned about the time. It takes as much time as it takes. If time is an issue for you, set an alarm clock to go off after five minutes; you’ll know if you’ve had a transcendental experience or if you were just biding your time for the alarm to go off (and you won’t benefit from that).
There are different kinds of meditation. Mindfulness, compassion, visualization, etc. The kind I am referring to is mindfulness and I am wondering if scientific studies have compared the benefits to quality of life of doing one long session vs. several short ones per day.
Check out 8 Minute Meditation by Victor Davich which starts, as the title suggests, at 8 minutes per session.
It is very straightforward and designed for a western audience. It also refutes all of Sycorax’s post except for the advice about a timer.
At the end of the book he explains how to incorporate mindfulness techniques into ordinary activities. He still aims for 2 20 minute sessions a day though.
I think 5 minute sessions may be good when you are first starting out and are simply unable to sit still for 25 minutes, but as you’ve become more practiced I recommend aiming to go for 25-30 minutes.
Naturally, with the longer meditation times you’ll probably end up frustrated and restless at first. But as you encounter and observe your own natural resistance you’ll build up an ability to be more patient, have a longer attention span, which can carry over to your non-meditating life as well. I don’t know of any studies on this issue, I’m just speaking from personal experience.
I think that most experts will say you should experiment for yourself and see what works. For me, 5 x 5 is definitely better because I have a carryover effect five times rather than once.
Scietifically speaking, I don’t know, but from my experience, I think the 20 minute meditations are better than 5 minute ones. You can go deeper into the experience. With 5 minute meditations, I don’t get the time to settle my thoughts and open my awareness as much. That said, I have also found a benefit to cultivating mindful states throughout the day, so 5 5 minute meditations would still be helpful, I think. Even 30 seconds is helpful sometimes. 50 30second meditations might be interesting too.
I think 20 minutes 2 times a day (or longer) is ideal, but I also think that any meditation you do throughout the day is better than none. You’re also not supposed to fall asleep while meditating, but I always did, and it was wonderful. I haven’t meditated in years now, but the benefits of learning to relax myself have stayed with me.
Have you read anything on heart rate variability and coherence with breathing patterns as it relates to meditation? That is good info. I have a biofeedback device that I use when I am doing that kind of meditation. However the more relaxed you become the more your HRV and breathing start syncing naturally.
Meditation with binaural beat CDs is also good. But in my experience you don’t really need to meditate with those, just listening usually does the job even if you are watching TV the whole time.
I don’t think it’s a matter of ‘better’. Meditation is a skill that you have to develop. If you can go all in for 5 minute periods than 5 x 5 is better than fidgeting for twenty and meditating for 5. It’s really all about your ability to accomplish it.
The goal of meditation is to reach that which we naturally are between thoughts. Basically it’s practicing listening to That Which Is Within. Along the way, you come to recognize that ALL thoughts are meaningless and not worth engaging and the way is pretty smooth after that.
How much time? 24/7 is great but any time at all is good. IMO, better to spend a minute in a peaceful mind than in a twenty minute debate with yourself, impatient for the bell.
I would say, how you parse your day would be what works for you.
I’ve always kind of found this idea to be trite bullshit. You’re right about meditation helping achieve what’s between thoughts or more specifically to achieve, ‘silence’, but that’s not at the expense of thought, it’s a necessary skill to help you think more efficiently. It’s a way to silence the junk thoughts that just bounce around in our brains without engaging. The idea that thought is all meaningless is stupid. You had to think to write the post denigrating thought. It’s one of those silly bullshit non-truisms that people who are halfway there think is meaningful. It’s the meditation equivalent of ‘yellow belt syndrome’, where someone who is on the cusp of neophyte and intermediate mistakes themselves for an expert.
LOL I look at all such spiritual pursuits as an adventure in efficiency. We think a lot of inefficient thoughts. Everywhere from the ancient Greek philosophers to Buddhist Monks people have found cultivating silence to be an useful tool in the quest for knowledge. I just find that often for some reason we misconstrue this as a moritorium on thought at all. We were given the ability to think and it was our greatest gift, it’s just that we abuse the hell out of it.
i think it would depend on how successful at having a quiet mind a person is.
for a person who had troubles having a quiet mind, most beginners probably, it would take more than 5 minutes to quiet down. if you tried 5 or 10 minutes only you would likely just be frustrated at the end. if that person tires for between 30 to 60 minutes you are likely to fall into periods of quietness every so often and more so as time goes one.
an experienced meditator might benefit from 5 minute times.
there is probably a reason that traditional practice does long periods of meditation because that has what has been found to work after a few thousand years of experimentation.
I know absolutely nothing about TM, so this may not be useful, but when first learning tranquil abiding (samatha) and analytical meditation (vipassana) in the Tibetan tradition, it is generally asserted that long sessions with a high quality of practice are best, but if you’re having trouble maintaining the quality of your focus, a very short session with complete attention is preferable to a longer session with lapses. Essentially, the idea is that whenever you meditate, you are conditioning your mind to the activity, and by starting with smaller sessions that you punctuate with breaks, you help prevent yourself from integrating bad habits or laxness, agitation, ignorance, and the like into your foundational practice.
I look at all such spiritual pursuits as an adventure in efficiency. We think a lot of inefficient thoughts. Everywhere from the ancient Greek philosophers to Buddhist Monks people have found cultivating silence to be an useful tool in the quest for knowledge. I just find that often for some reason we misconstrue this as a moritorium on thought at all. We were given the ability to think and it was our greatest gift, it’s just that we abuse the hell out of it.