When to Meditate

I think we’re all very different, you know. I personally recommend that you meditate first thing in the morning, and I’ll tell you why, there are some advantages to that. But it’s also very important to recognize that we are all different, that we should be flexible, it works for some people, not for everyone, and there is nothing bad or worse about meditating later in the day, lunch time, evening. There are just some very definite benefits to doing it first thing in the day.

 

Number one, you get rid of any kind of grogginess from your sleep. So you really start the day feeling calm, and clear, and fresh, and it’s just a nice way to begin the day.

 

Second one is if we start the day in that way, with our meditation, we are that much more likely to be mindful throughout the day. So it’s almost like we punctuate the day with that really big session of meditation and we have all these little moments. Because we remember, we set the mind up to be aware throughout the day.

 

There’s someone in the community who wrote, quite a while back, saying his favorite thing about Headspace actually wasn’t the meditation, it was the fact that when he meditated, he made better choices throughout the day.

 

So he would go to the--when he started the day with meditation, he would go to the gym. He would be aware of what foods he was eating so he would make better food choices. He was aware when he went into conversations with people, he was a little bit more kind about it, a bit more thoughtful in his interactions.

 

So there’s really something about that--if we can begin the day in that way, it really sets us up for the entire day ahead.