Journal · Practices · 5 min read
What is mindfulness? A 10-minute daily practice for beginners
Mindfulness trains attention to come back to the present. Your mind does not need to be empty, and 10 minutes a day is a good place to start.
Many people think mindfulness means sitting still and thinking about nothing. They sit down, the thoughts keep coming, and they give up, convinced they cannot do it.
Mindfulness trains attention
Mindfulness means paying deliberate attention to what is happening now, such as the breath, sensations in the body, sounds and thoughts, without rushing to judge them. Thoughts will appear. The practice is noticing that your mind has wandered and bringing it back. Each time you do, you have practised once.
The best-known approach comes from Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which Jon Kabat-Zinn started at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1979. He put the body scan, sitting meditation and gentle stretching into an eight-week programme for people living with long-term stress and pain. Hospitals, schools and employers have since adopted similar methods.
How to start with 10 minutes a day
- Pick a fixed time, such as after brushing your teeth or before you sit back down after lunch. A regular time matters more than a long one.
- Sit on a chair with both feet flat on the floor. Your eyes can be half closed.
- Notice the coolness at the nostrils as you breathe in through the nose, and your belly settling as you breathe out through the nose. There is no need to control the pace.
- When you catch yourself thinking, note "thinking" silently and return to the breath.
- After 10 minutes, notice how your body feels before you stand up.
What the first few weeks are like
In the first few days, most people find their mind wanders far more often than they expected. That is not failure. With practice, people usually notice sooner that they have drifted, and coming back gets easier. Some also notice how tired they are. The tiredness was already there; they had simply not paid attention to it.
If you feel strong distress during practice, open your eyes and look around, or switch to walking practice. Anyone receiving psychiatric or psychological treatment should talk to their doctor or therapist first.
Practising with a guide
The Practise tab in the ZJ app has eight breathing practices of one to three minutes each, a simple way into a daily 10 minutes. For structured practice in a small group, Mindfulness Foundations runs online one evening a week for six weeks.