Daily Meditation for Stress Relief,
Better Sleep, and a Calm, Quiet Confidence

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #552: Daily Meditation for Stress Relief, Better Sleep, and a Calm, Quiet Confidence

Jeff Sanders
Take a deep, slow breath.

Drop your shoulders.

Open your lower abdomen.

As you feel your whole body begin to fully and deeply relax.

Slow your thoughts and focus on the breath.

This is meditation, simple, calm and powerful.

This is the 5 a.m. miracle.

Episode number 552, daily meditation for stress relief, better sleep and a calm, quiet confidence.

Good morning and welcome to the 5 a.m. miracle.

I am Jeff Sanders and in this special meditation focused episode, I'll break down why and how meditation has made its way into my life in a significant way.

Why meditation is such a powerful habit and how you can create a personalized and repeatable meditation practice.

Let's begin.

We'll begin with a simple definition of meditation or from my perspective, we're actually going to go through quite a few.

And I want to open this conversation up not just with a definition but also a bit of context.

I'm not a monk, in case you're wondering.

I am actually a guy who has gone through a few decades of life in which stress, anxiety, difficulty has been baked in, whether I realized it or not.

And I'm the kind of person who, whether I realize it or not, needs a practice like I'm going to discuss this week.

So let's begin with what meditation is.

We'll also get into why it's so beneficial, my personal story behind meditation, and then of course we'll make sure that we can build out a meditation practice just for you.

So when I researched meditation a bit for the episode, I was struck by a few things.

The first of which is that meditation does not have a singular definition or perspective.

There are quite a few ways to perceive it, quite a few ways to practice it.

And so the good news behind that is that if you have previously written off meditation as something that is not for you, well the good news is that may not be true.

You may actually be able to find a version of meditation that is for you.

That's my story.

I have recently crafted, customized, personalized, and designed my own practice.

I have no idea if it's based in science or religion or history.

I don't know what it's based in, but I do know it's based in what I need now.

And I think that's the beauty behind what this kind of practice can provide is that sense of personalization.

So having said that, meditation has a few definitions.

The first of which that I found online says that meditation is thinking deeply or focusing one's mind for a period of time in silence or with the aid of chanting or music, for religious or spiritual purposes, or as a method of relaxation.

It's kind of an in-depth overview of what lots of people view meditation as, mostly this concept of thinking and focusing in a deep and relaxing manner.

And of course you have the option to do so in silence or as we just did with the aid of music.

That has been my personal preference is to use music like that, which we'll get to in more detail in a minute.

A second definition that I found says that meditation is a practice that involves focusing or clearing your mind using a combination of mental and physical techniques.

The concept of clearing your mind is a very common one and one that in my personal experience, there's pros and cons to that perspective.

And there are ways to do it that I think are effective in ways that are probably not.

We'll also get to that in a little bit.

Another perspective on meditation is that it is engaging in contemplation or reflection.

I have found this to be very true for myself in that meditation provides an opportunity for self-awareness, an opportunity to really dig into where you are in this present moment.

Yes, you can reflect back on past behavior or experiences.

You can contemplate and think about what might be happening in the future.

But for the most part, meditation is a present moment practice.

It is a here and now experience.

Another definition says that meditation is a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, discursive thinking.

In other words, you are training and growing the skill set of paying attention and being more self-aware.

I really like this idea that this is a skill because if that is true and it is, you can get better at it.

And that's so encouraging.

Everything I've ever pursued in the world of personal growth, productivity, healthy habits, all of this is based on this core belief in personal development, which is that I can develop myself over time, which means I can improve.

Things can get better and any skill that you practice, you can improve upon.

So that component is powerful.

And a fifth and final definition that I discovered is that meditation is thinking calm thoughts in order to relax.

It's probably the most simplistic way to view this and also one that I think is what I tend to go for in that when I sit down to meditate, I am intentionally focusing my thoughts, my physicality on this idea of being calm in the moment with this very pure intention of a deep, relaxing experience.

That when I come out of meditation session, I am less stressed.

I am more presently experiencing life in a way that is very beautiful and flows better as opposed to being disjointed or distracted or just frazzled.

We all know those experiences.

You may be there yourself now, which is why this episode is for you.

Now, also from this perspective of meditation, you can define this for yourself as I was just discussing earlier.

You don't actually need a medical definition.

You need a personal one.

What do you want meditation to be?

How do you want to practice?

What goals do you have from a meditation session or potentially a lifelong meditation practice?

For a long, long time, I wrote off meditation for all kinds of reasons, which I'll discuss in more detail.

But I think that for me, having a very simplistic view of it gave me an easy out.

It allowed me to say, "Well, meditation requires you to be a monk on a mountaintop at an abbey far away from where I am, living a life I don't live.

Therefore, it's not for me and I'm not going to be able to make it work for me."

It wasn't until I defined it for myself with very specific habits and systems that I was able to craft my own experience and allow it to become part of my routine, my rhythm, my daily habit flow.

If that becomes true for you, the meditation can go from something you don't do to something you absolutely do, that it is part of your presence and part of your future.

Take the chance in the episode to reflect on what meditation can be, not just what you've thought of it in the past.

From this perspective, you may be thinking, "Well, I don't want to meditate because I don't think it's actually that valuable.

I don't find sitting still for a few minutes really that beneficial for me.

It's not going to solve the problems I have.

Why meditate?"

It's the best and most important question.

I researched this as well, the first of which is it relieves stress, anxiety, fear, and depression.

I have personally experienced this one.

It's probably the most dramatic benefit, the most amazing skill to be able to draw upon is to catch yourself in a moment of stress, in a season of anxiety when you're feeling that surge of hormones and your breathing becomes really shallow and quick.

You're angry and you're typing really viciously on the computer because you're trying to respond to difficulties in life.

The life of a high achiever, which this podcast is for, we experience high stress because we are asking for it in so many ways.

We take on big goals.

We want big things, which is wonderful, but what comes with big responsibility in most cases is an enormous obligation to adhere to all kinds of challenges that we don't control.

Some things we do, but oftentimes we don't control everything like we want to.

We're dying for control and when we feel as though we have lost control, for me personally, that's when stress and overwhelming anxiety and fear and depression, all these negative and extreme emotions can surface when we find ourselves in difficult scenarios, most of which we have opted into.

Which means we have an obligation to have a skill set to address that component.

There's the yin and the yang here, two sides of the coin.

One is ambition, finish lines, big resume builders, and the other side is what we sacrifice to get there.

And part of that sacrifice can be, and in many cases includes, our mental health.

But it doesn't have to be that way if we have a toolbox we can pull from to be able to do the things that we need for ourselves.

To prioritize self-care, to adopt what this podcast is all about, a healthy productivity strategy for high achievers.

And a mental health practice of meditating is absolutely at the core of what that is.

It should have been part of my life for a long time.

The more that I practice meditation now, the more obvious it is that, man, I missed out.

I missed out on decades of potential here.

And so I'm very thankful that it's part of my life now, but I do feel that sense of guilt of, man, what if?

What if I had started younger?

That would have been great, but I digress.

A second benefit of meditation is the enhancement of self-awareness, really understanding how you feel in this moment, really getting in touch with your body, your physicality, your thoughts in your brain.

I spend a lot of time in self-awareness in my daily practice of life.

Not meditation, but just trying to tap in and acknowledge where I am now.

I'll frequently pause throughout the day and just check in with myself.

It's like a very miniature version of meditation, where I'm just simply asking, how do I feel right now?

Am I heading down the wrong direction emotionally, physically?

Is my stress starting to peak a little bit?

Should I back off?

These kinds of questions can help you to navigate your day-to-day life in a better way, and meditation can help you to tap into what that looks like and then pivot before things might go sideways.

Another benefit is regarding sleep.

A lot of people use meditation to fall asleep faster, to stay asleep longer.

I don't typically have a hard time falling asleep, so I have not found meditation to be necessary at this point in my life for that.

But I will say that when I do meditate, which tends to be in the afternoons, I kind of almost fall asleep then, like a nap.

And I don't nap.

I'm not that kind of guy, but maybe I'm becoming that kind of guy.

And so from that perspective, yes, meditation and sleep go hand in hand in a lot of ways.

Another benefit is that meditation helps to lengthen your attention span.

This is essential in our world today.

In a world of cell phones, which is the number one issue we all have, our attention span is gone.

It just doesn't exist.

And to have the ability to sit still without your phone for 20 minutes can be life-changing.

I'll use the best example I've used before on this show, is that in the afternoons, I pick up my daughter from daycare and we go to the gym together, where I lift weights and I always finish my workout in the sauna or steam room.

My gym has both and so I choose one or the other.

And in that 15 to 20 minutes that I'm there, I do not have my phone with me.

It is the only time of the day, aside from when I'm asleep, that my phone is not with me.

That's it.

And so it's a very precious time of day where I can sit for literally 15 to 20 minutes without my phone and just pay attention to where I am.

So I've been doing a pseudo meditation for a long time in the sauna, which can act as that.

It's not nearly as intentional, but it does have a similar benefit.

So consider that as one of your goals here is to lengthen your attention span.

Another benefit is you can improve your cognitive abilities and concentration.

I have not personally focused on this component yet in my practice, but I've definitely seen quite a bit from others that this is a powerful part of meditation, which is that your brain functions better, your neurons fire more effectively, you strengthen connections, and it really does help to improve your brain health.

That is part of this.

There's a lot of research and meditation that I have not dug into deeply yet, but I do know that's part of it.

This is definitely a major component that meditation and brain health go hand in hand.

Another great benefit, speaking of that, is to reduce memory loss.

I'm a little bit young in terms of, I'm 40 years old now, so I guess I'm middle-aged, but I have not experienced memory loss in a significant way, so I can't speak to this personally, but I have definitely seen that people have mentioned that as a benefit for them as well.

One thing I have seen that I love is that meditation can enhance your willpower.

I don't really know how this plays out in the bigger picture sense, but in the short-term sense, like the daily meditation practice, is that after I finish meditating, I do have this clear sense of a restart in my day, a refreshing new beginning.

I meditate in the middle of the day, and so I get the chance to have a second half of my day be better.

And so if I have more discipline, more willpower, more mental clarity, I can make the rest of the day better because I had a reset, and that's what this can provide as well.

Another benefit is the help with addiction.

I can't speak to this one, but I can say that I see the potential for that, and I see how that could aid in someone's ability to stop smoking, reduce drug use.

There's lots of addictive behaviors you might want to curb, and meditation can be part of that.

Now, I'm not a doctor.

I can't speak to medical benefits here.

I probably should have started the episode with that disclaimer.

I'm not a monk.

I'm also not a doctor, so from that experience, take this for what it is, but research that if that's something that you want to learn more about.

Another benefit of meditation is that it can decrease blood pressure.

This I've been sort of tracking on my own, not with a blood pressure cuff, but in terms of my resting heart rate and my overall sense of relaxation.

There is no doubt that meditation can help to really bring you down in a healthy and really good way.

If you've been a little anxious, a little up, a little too caffeinated, a little too hyperactive, meditation can reset you back to a much healthier, lower sense of a good, healthier blood pressure, resting heart rate, and level of anxiety.

Another benefit that I saw was that meditation can help with greater compassion and kindness.

This is a choice.

This is not something I'm going to argue will happen by default.

If you decide to spend your meditation sessions thinking on purpose about things like love, compassion, and kindness, well then sure, you can get more of that.

You could also get the opposite though.

If you spend 20 minutes thinking negative thoughts, you're probably going to get more negativity in your life.

This is very simple cause and effect.

Meditation is a choice to actually practice it, but it's also a choice on how you practice and what you do at that time.

If you want more compassion, more kindness, more love, then do it, live it, think about it, experience it on purpose, and then allow that to then play into the rest of your life.

In a sense, it's the law of attraction.

I'm not going to go there.

Although I did interview Bob Proctor in this podcast years ago about that exact topic.

So if you want to learn about the movie The Secrets and the law of attraction, you can look into my interview with Bob Proctor.

The final thing that I saw here on the benefits of meditation, and this is undeniably true, is that you can practice meditation just about anywhere or at any time.

Of course, as long as you're not driving a vehicle or doing anything that might harm yourself or others, yes, you can practice meditation in a lot of different places for any length of time and it can work and it can be helpful.

Even a very short stint of 30 seconds or a minute has benefits, and that's more obvious the more you practice this.

This is one thing that I have read about and then recently experienced, which is that if you build the skill set of meditation, you can tap into it faster with less of a transition period and then get more benefits sooner because you know how to get yourself in that flow.

This is the skill set of transitioning your brain to a pattern of a rhythmic thought process of a calm demeanor.

You can learn how to do this and it can be very effective.

The question about benefits of meditation really comes down to what do you want to get from this?

I would argue that your best perspective here is to pick just one benefit that speaks to you the most strongly.

You don't need a dozen reasons like I just listed off here.

You really just need one.

You need the one that matters to you.

So you want to find your one and let the rest just kind of logically justify your emotional rationale here.

But for me personally, the undeniable most important thing I'm going for is trying to relieve stress and anxiety.

I'm trying to relax.

That's it.

If I get any of the other benefits I just listed, that's awesome.

But those are side effects.

They're not the main effect I'm going for.

So for you, the question is why meditate?

Answer that question.

Be clear what that is.

And then as you craft your own practice, it will be based around this core mission of yours to achieve this one specific benefit.

And then the other chips will follow as they may.

So let's go back to my personal story a little bit more specifically around this concept of why I rejected meditation in the past.

There's a lot here actually.

There are quite a few reasons.

And it's fascinating to me because I basically threw every excuse in the book at meditation.

If you listen to this podcast for the last 11 years, I have sprinkled in conversations over the last decade, always hinting at the idea that, "Well, I don't meditate, but I would like to."

Or, "I tried meditation.

It was fine, but I don't love it, so I'm going to move on and find something better."

Now in the grander context of healthy habits, that's still true.

It's true in the sense that we don't have time to do everything.

We don't have time in our lives to do every healthy habit under the sun.

But we do have time for our few core habits that mean the most to us.

And so the question around meditation for me was always, "Where does it fall on that priority list?

How important is this to me?"

And the answer was always, "It's not on the list at all.

It's not important.

I don't care.

I'm going to move on and do other things that are healthy and fun."

Which is great, until recently, where I have discovered a reason to meditate, which I'll get to.

But let's just start with why I rejected it more specifically.

And these are not in any particular order.

This is just random.

First, I didn't like sitting still.

I'm definitely a busybody, drink too much coffee, move a lot, run a lot.

I just have always had the excuse that I don't want to sit still.

I also assumed that I had to sit cross-legged, and I don't like that at all.

My legs are kind of large.

I have big thighs, in case you were wondering.

And so when I sit cross-legged, it's just not comfortable.

So I never liked that idea.

I also thought that meditation by itself was just not productive and therefore a waste of time.

As a box-checker, productivity guy who wants to get a lot done, I always thought of meditation as just this silly waste of sitting still.

Why would I sit down for 20 minutes when I could be up doing things, literally standing up and moving my body?

What's the point?

I really struggled with this for a long, long time.

Another reason I rejected meditation is I didn't like the guided meditation.

So they're very common.

The Calm app is a good example of this where, by the way, they sponsored my podcast for a while.

I love the Calm app.

My wife uses it literally every night for sleep stories, which is fantastic.

And they feature and really highlight their guided meditations, guided sleep stories.

It's probably the most popular app out there for meditation.

It's a great place to begin.

However, I have never enjoyed a guided meditation from an app.

I have from a live experience.

I've done a few of those before at a meditation class I took a long time ago, where I really did enjoy someone guiding me through that in person, but I never really resonated with that from an app.

And so I kind of just wrote it all off from there.

Now, in addition, I also found it hard to be alone and just confront my random thoughts.

This is probably where you're going to struggle a lot if meditation has not been part of your life and/or you're the kind of hyperactive high achiever like I am where your brain is always moving.

And when that's the case, it can be hard to be by yourself, to sit alone and to let the thoughts come into your head and address them.

It can be fear inducing.

It can be stressful to have to look at yourself in that internal way.

And for a long time, I just didn't want to do that.

So I said no.

I also thought that I was just doing it wrong.

I assumed that there was a right way to do it and I was doing it wrong.

Therefore, I was not getting the right benefits.

Therefore, it was not for me.

This was a big mistake, which I'll get to.

I also assumed I needed some special skills, that I needed something I didn't have.

I thought that I had to be a monk and go through training and years of practice to really have something unique about me that had to be true.

Also, a false statement.

I don't need these special skills and neither do you.

I thought along those same lines, I had to pay for expensive training.

That does exist.

There's a lot of training out there you can pay for.

I will use the Transcendental Meditation practice as an example of that.

It is a non-profit organization, but if you take an actual training course from a trained practitioner, I've looked this up, they're going to charge you real money to do this.

I can't speak from experience to know whether it's worth the money or not, but I do know that if you want to pay for training for anything in life, someone's going to charge you for it and you can do it.

The question is, do you need that?

And the answer unequivocally is probably no.

Of course, I thought that I had to become a monk or join a certain religion.

I really thought that that was if you're going to do something and you do it hardcore, that's my mentality.

I'm a high achiever.

If I'm going to do something, I'm going to get an A+ in it.

Therefore, if I'm going to meditate, I'm going to move to Tibet, be a monk and go hardcore.

That's not required.

You can take that stress off your shoulders.

That's not part of this, unless you want it to be.

I also thought that the proposed benefits of meditation just didn't fit me.

I didn't think that they would solve problems that I had at the time.

This is something that I was missing the mark here.

I was missing, number one, how many benefits actually exist from meditation, first of all.

Secondly, this false belief that I'm somehow perfect, that my life is somehow stress-free, that I don't need help, that I'm fine by myself.

The ego that comes into play there is huge for me.

To be able to address that, acknowledge that, really focus on fixing that perspective, that's been a big journey for me personally.

If you've experienced any of that sense of being your own hero all the time, this may be a good practice for you.

Finally, I didn't think that I could spare the time.

I really thought that I would have to give up something important and I would lose something.

That trade-off wouldn't be worth it.

From my experience, that's just not true.

We have way more time than we think.

We waste way more time than you would ever imagine.

To spend upwards, 10, 15, 20 minutes a day in meditation, that's not a sacrifice.

It just isn't.

There's so much more we can do at the time we have.

To set aside a few minutes a day for this, which is all it really requires, it's just a no-brainer.

It's so obvious to me now that that should be part of my life.

It took a long time.

I'm literally 40 years old.

I'm just now talking about this in a significant way.

It took me four decades.

Hopefully for you, it's not that long.

But we'll see.

Then the question becomes, what changed?

I have all these reasons, excuses, just Alpawazu, all these excuses for why meditation is not my thing.

What happened?

In short, I had a reason to try meditation more seriously due to a stressful season of my life.

I needed a new approach to reduce stress, anxiety, fear, negative thought patterns, these things that had slowly crept into my life over many years.

I finally reached a point, this is probably six months ago, that it really dawned on me, "Wait a minute.

I've never taken this seriously.

I've never even considered the idea that this should be part of my life.

I've always written it off."

Well, why not try now?

Why not in this period of stress, anxiety, fear, issues, mental anguish, whatever it is I thought I was going through?

Why not now?

Let's give this a shot.

It really stemmed from a conversation that I had with my friend Lionel Cartwright, who is a musician here in Nashville, who was telling me about his practice and about how he began this in a way that said, "I want to improve my life.

I want to be able to tap into more creativity, more potential."

As he was explaining this to me over some coffee one day, I remember thinking to myself, "Everything he is saying is what I want.

Everything he's talking about is what I need now in my life."

It was from that conversation that I decided to give this a shot seriously.

I began this in a more rhythmic way probably two and a half, three months ago.

It's gotten a lot more solidified in the last few weeks.

Because of that, I'm a newbie.

I'm definitely a beginner when it comes to meditation, but I'm also someone who's very serious about habits, who's very intentional about how my time is spent.

Then the question is, "What kinds of benefits can I get from this?

What does it look like for me to meditate?"

To address those excuses, I want to go through those one by one as well because this is important.

First of all, I found a time of day to sit and pause when it fits my natural energy rhythm.

Previously, I thought that there was no time in the day.

Well, guess what?

There is.

I found it, and it fits my rhythm for energy, my rhythm for work.

It fits into my life.

This is a really important part that if you're going to add in a habit of any kind, it needs to be a natural fit.

You need to flow downstream with this.

We're not trying to fight.

It's actually the opposite of that.

We're really just trying to let go of that tension, and that's why this can be so powerful.

In addition, I don't sit cross-legged when I meditate.

I didn't want to.

I still don't.

I don't have to.

We're never going to do it.

I don't care about it.

You're never going to see me in a cross-legged position.

Believe me, it is not happening.

The good news there is I don't have to, and I still get the benefits.

Another thing that I have discovered is that I know now that meditation is a great use of my time, and it leads to many creative and productive insights that I would otherwise just not have.

It has been a powerful thing for me to be able to tap into my own creative energy, my own new ideas, and to know that my time is being used wisely, and it's not this weird trade-off I thought that it was.

In addition, I definitely still don't use guided meditations, even though they are potentially beneficial.

I know that for me it doesn't achieve the result that I want, so I just use calm music like you hear at the top of the show.

That for me has worked really well.

I also know now that I find it wonderful to be alone with my thoughts to see how relaxed I can become as I address them.

Previously I had anxiety about thinking my own thoughts to acknowledge what they were, because my brain was just spinning so fast.

So to be able to have the skills to slow that down, to acknowledge the thoughts, to let them go, to really dig deep into a session, I'm gaining those skills now, and it's really cool to see how that plays out.

I also know now that there are many methods of meditation, and I can customize this to my liking.

I can also test new methods all the time to find out what I like and don't like.

I just said multiple times that I don't like the guided sessions.

That may not be true in the future.

I may very easily change my tune when I find a guide that I like.

This is not about saying no to any certain perspective.

It's about saying yes to the things that are working for you now and doubling down on those.

That's the point.

You go where you feel cold, you go where the magnet is pulling you in, and that's where things resonate the most.

That's where you flow downstream.

That's when things are really beautiful and effective.

Now in addition, I don't need special skills to meditate, but I do need a willingness to try again and again to sit and practice again and again.

There's a reason why it's called a practice and not a perfection.

There's a reason why meditation is an ongoing skill-gaining experience.

It is not something you necessarily master, even though there may be those who say they have mastered it.

That's not the point.

This is just about being present in the moment, relaxing, tapping into where you are, checking in.

That's it.

Yes, it's a skill to improve, sure, but it's not something we're trying to become world-class in in that sense.

If you want to, I guess you could have a goal of that, but to me that would miss the point of what this is.

This is not a finish line to cross.

There's no medal to be achieved here.

This is a personal experience to tap into a better version of you.

Now I've also not paid for training, like I said before, but I will keep that in mind for future opportunities for growth.

I don't think that paying for a trainer is a bad thing.

My point from before was that you can start today without money.

You don't have to pay for anything to meditate.

You literally can do so by just sitting down where you are and just closing your eyes.

This does not require money, but of course that option is always going to be available.

Someone will always be there to take your cash.

In addition, of course I'm not a monk.

I didn't change religions or join a religion, but I do love to learn from others who are vastly different from me.

At least on the outside.

I really like this idea that I can learn from someone who's experienced something I just haven't.

I've never discussed this in the podcast before, I don't think, but my favorite class in high school was called World Religions.

It was taught by an amazing guy who actually just passed away a couple of years ago.

He was teaching us for my entire senior year of high school about all of these major world religions, how they worked, where they are practiced, what their habits are, what their belief systems are.

It blew my mind.

I was fascinated by all these conversations.

To me, meditation fits into a practice that honestly is kind of un-American in many ways.

I grew up in a world where meditation is a foreign concept.

It's kind of like yoga where it was somewhere else in the world and then it snuck into American society a little bit.

It is more common than it used to be, but it's not the norm.

If I meditate, I am doing something that most Americans do not do every day.

You may live somewhere in the world where it is part of your practice, and therefore what I'm saying probably sounds foolish and naive and I don't sound like I know what I'm talking about.

On the other hand, if you have not experienced this and you do want to learn more and you want to dig in, there's so much to learn.

There's so much here to dig into and it's very interesting.

Also, the benefits of meditation are resonating with me now in profound ways that previously I didn't think were possible.

I didn't think I would care about it.

I didn't think it would matter to me.

As it turns out, deeply relaxing does matter to me.

Shocker!

Destressing matters to me.

Holy cow!

It seems kind of obvious when you say it like that, but to take the time out of your day to do it, to execute on that, and then experience it, and then say, "Well, yeah, of course that was good for me.

Of course that was beneficial."

And then to bake that in as a habit, there are just layers of commitment.

And we're asking ourselves, "Can we get there?

Can we test it?

Can we try it?

Can we experiment with it?"

And then once we find what works, can we bake that into our lifestyle?

That becomes the big question.

Now, finally, in terms of what I have discovered so far in this practice is that I can spare the time I want to, I'm going to.

This is a lifestyle for me.

This is a long-term thing.

I'm in.

I am fully in.

This is going to be part of my life going forward as far as I can tell.

Now, of course, I may get lazy in the future.

Who knows?

I may find other habits that are better to replace it.

I don't know.

But I can say for now that this is part of my life, this is powerful, and it's here for the long haul.

Having said that, let's discuss what that looks like, what my actual practical daily meditation practice is with specifics.

And this is where you can take notes or listen to this episode again on Reepy if you want to, but this is the practical nuts and bolts of my actual session, one that you can model after if you want to.

Of course, once again, I'm a beginner, so don't trust everything I'm saying.

Trust but verify and test this for yourself.

The first component is scheduling.

So it's very common to do a 20-minute session of meditation.

The Transcendental Meditation practice recommends two of these per day.

I do one.

I basically only have the time and the energy and the focus to do one session per day.

That's usually 20 minutes.

Sometimes it's 30 minutes, but that's basically it.

I did do an experimental session of a full one-hour meditation, which was basically unnecessary for me.

One of the questions that I had was, "How long should I meditate?

What's the optimal duration?"

And the research basically says that you basically meditate as long as you feel that it's helping you, and as soon as it's not, you can stop your session.

And for most people, you're going to get the vast majority of the benefits in 15 to 20 minutes.

So you don't need to do a full hour or eight hours or live in the woods for six months and meditate the entire time.

You really can just do a short session.

Once a day is going to be great.

Twice a day is probably better.

I haven't really done a lot with the double day sessions, but I will say that 20 minutes is the sweet spot.

You can start with that or build up to that.

If you want to start slower, that's also great.

The other question on scheduling, aside from how long should I meditate for and how many times per day, is when in the day.

And I mentioned before I do it in the afternoon, I actually found that my 20-minute session just after lunch is ideal for me.

And that's Monday through Friday.

Weekends are complicated.

I've got a wife and two kids.

And so as a guy who works from home, I have the flexibility to meditate during my "work day."

And so that's when I choose to do it.

The question then for you becomes if you're going to schedule in a session like this, when does it fit in for you?

With your work schedule, your family schedule, your obligations, responsibilities, when your energy really fits the best way possible.

I started meditation actually in the evening once everyone else was already asleep.

So my very first experimental sessions happened at like 930 at night and then I would go to sleep afterwards.

And that was a great place to begin.

So if that's where you want to start, you could also try a 5 a.m. miracle meditation.

Whatever is going to work for you to ask the question, how can I test it and see what works and then find a rhythmic way to bake it into my life.

Those are the most important places to start with to make sure this can fit long term.

So that's the scheduling components.

How long to meditate for the session itself.

How many times a day.

How many days a week.

When in your life will it fit.

Now let's shift to the actual session itself.

And I have preparation that I do.

But to basically get myself into the session well, I turn off all the lights in my house.

So if you can meditate in a place that's dark.

I like that personally.

I sit in my living room chair and I've started putting a blanket on my legs when I meditate, which I find to be nice.

Not sure why, but it's a good thing to do.

I put on my Sony noise canceling headphones.

This is great because they are fully immersive for me to listen to the music that I love.

And from that perspective, I use my iPhone and stream in ad free YouTube premium meditation videos.

So I joined the YouTube premium service, I believe is about $15 a month.

So I get the ad free videos and I simply found 5, 6, 7 videos that offer meditations, most of which are one hour or longer.

Some are as long as 10 and 12 hours long.

But basically I found a couple that I really like.

And so I will just listen to a portion of one of those for about 20 minutes.

And I stream that from my phone via Bluetooth to my headphones.

While I'm meditating, my iPhone is silenced.

However, I keep it next to me with my task manager, Nozbe.

N-O-Z-B-E.

My task manager is available on my phone so I can take notes.

This is a really important distinction here.

Sometimes when I meditate, I just sit there.

Sometimes I will sit there and then grab a quick note and then go back to meditating and take another note.

And then back to meditating, I take another note.

If I get a lot of ideas, I'm not going to forget them.

I'm going to write them down.

And sometimes in my session, ideas are just flying in a thousand miles an hour.

And so I record all of them.

Other days I have none.

I'll just sit there.

And that's fine too.

I'm not trying to get ideas.

If it happens, great.

I'll record it.

If it doesn't, great.

I'll just sit there.

I'm not trying to make meditation more than it is.

I just kind of let things happen based on how I feel that day.

Now, in addition to having the phone next to me that is streaming the music, I will set a 20-minute timer on my Garmin watch.

And the cool thing about my watch is it can vibrate when the timer is done and there's no sound, which actually is a wonderful way to end the session because I already have the music in my ears.

And then my watch does a very slight vibration to alert me that the session is now complete.

And I can stop at that point.

And of course, I can change the timer length if I want to.

I can do 10 minutes.

I can do 30.

I can do an hour.

I do 20 every day and it works out beautifully.

So that's essentially the preparation is having myself on my living room chair with my headphones, with my music, with my watch, everything there is ready.

Now, during the actual meditation, I do close my eyes.

My hands are resting on my legs throughout the majority of this unless I'm taking notes on my phone.

I will really sink myself deep into the chair, but I want to maintain a decent back posture at the same time.

This is not always easy.

Sometimes I'm very tired.

I want to fall asleep.

But posture is really important here to stay a little bit more alert, a little more present.

I'm not trying to sleep.

I'm trying to focus.

I'm trying to relax.

But it's a relaxed sense of good posture, if that makes any sense.

And it is possible to achieve.

I will also breathe deeply and slowly in the beginning to enter the meditation.

But then I let that kind of rhythmically flow more naturally as it continues.

But I like the slow, deep breaths to enter into this new zone.

And I think it helps that transition quite a bit.

While I'm meditating, I let my mind wander quite a bit.

But I will always bring my thoughts back to my breath, back to the music.

Or what I've tried recently is back to a repeated word or phrase that I want to focus on.

For example, love, joy, relax, peace.

I'll just pick a word.

I'll say it.

Kind of like a chant or a mantra.

But I'll say it in my head over and over again.

And that has worked in a number of ways.

But I try different strategies here.

Sometimes it's just silence.

Sometimes I have a thought and then let it go.

Sometimes I'll actually think through something for a while on purpose.

I'm really just trying to see what I like the best in the moment.

And the answer varies quite a bit.

Now having said that, I do not focus on things I don't want.

This is a really important distinction.

I only focus on things I do want in my life.

So don't think about fear.

Think instead about confidence.

Don't think about worst case scenarios.

Instead, think about how something could go really well.

I think one of the most powerful things we can do to train ourselves to be more positive, more creative, more potential filled individuals is to think about the things we love, things we want, things we're striving for, not the things we're trying to escape.

Because if we tell our brain to think about something negative, we're going to get more of it.

It's just going to happen.

So use these sessions as a training vehicle to bring about more love, more joy, more compassion.

It really is powerful in that sense.

Now, in addition, I will also try to avoid falling asleep.

I have not actually fallen asleep yet, but I've gotten really close.

It's really interesting to see how I can kind of dance on that line of almost being asleep.

I'm not sure it's actually the best way to meditate.

I think it's probably not.

But that just is a kind of a side effect that does tend to happen.

Now, as the session progresses, I will get myself very relaxed and I will try to quiet my mind.

So by the time the 20 minutes is over, I am generally like jello.

Like my body is just melted into the chair.

I am very deeply relaxed, similar to how you might feel after a massage.

I tend to feel that sense of just whole body deep relaxation.

And it's such a powerful thing to experience, especially when you've come from maybe a high stress morning, a high stress day.

You've got a lot in your mind.

Your body is tense.

You're really rigid.

This gives you the chance to counteract that in such a powerful way and then transition into a more relaxed next portion of your day.

Now, after the session, I will then sit quietly for a few minutes and reflect on what just happened.

Oftentimes, I review my notes if I took any.

I then make a green tea and transition into my afternoon work session.

And so by the time I get to an afternoon session, which is actually where I am now today recording this podcast, I'm generally much more relaxed, much less hyperactive.

The caffeine in the morning has worn off.

The sense of tension and stress to begin the day with a lot of intentionality tends to slow down.

And my afternoons can be more chill and they're definitely more chill if I meditated intentionally after I had lunch.

So in a nutshell, that is how I meditate.

That's how it works on most days, most of the time.

It looks like what I just described.

So enough about me, which has been a long discussion about my experience.

How can you create a personalized and repeatable meditation practice?

Number one, start small.

You might do one minute or two minute sessions, just kind of tinkering with it to see what's possible.

Right.

Sit and breathe with your eyes closed and just breathe for a couple of minutes.

This is the key thing.

Don't let excuses stop you from doing something in a very small piece.

It should be so easy you can't ignore it.

So a 30 second session might sound worthless.

Start there.

Do that and then let yourself build up to two minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, longer if you want to.

But really begin small to get into the habit of doing this and do this every single day.

Number two, experiment.

Try different times of the day.

Morning, noon, evening, different durations, five minutes, 15, an hour or more.

You can also try using a time limit like my watch has the vibration that tells me it's done or an unlimited duration where you meditate as long as you feel the need to and stop whenever you feel like you're done.

That also can be very effective for a deeper relaxation, maybe on the weekends or trying to fall asleep at night.

Try using music or going with total silence.

You can try guided or self-guided.

You can try chanting out loud, which personally I find me very strange.

Or you can silently repeat a word or phrase in your mind, which I have found to be pretty effective.

Or of course, as a sleep technique or a chaos reducing work strategy.

Lots of ideas here, lots of directions to take this.

You want to try different variations to see which of these methods tends to work best for you.

And then finally, schedule it.

Whatever form your practice takes on, make it a commitment by guaranteeing time on your calendar.

Yes, I meditate after lunch every single day, but you need to find a time that works for you.

Maybe afternoon is too busy for you.

Maybe the morning before everyone is awake is best. 5 a.m. miracle time.

Make it happen.

But schedule whatever time it is to guarantee you will do this at least five days a week, possibly more.

So in addition to all of this, there are other forms of meditation that are similar, but not specifically what we just discussed.

And that could include self-hypnosis.

It could include the sauna or steam room, getting a massage, going for a long run.

Anything that is calm or rhythmic that can induce essentially a hypnotic response can trigger a form of meditation.

So you don't want to think in a small box here that it has to be sitting in a chair by yourself in a quiet room for 20 minutes.

That's a very specifically targeted approach that I have taken recently.

But as I said earlier, I've used the sauna and steam room for a long time.

I had a massage just recently.

I have had endurance running events where I have felt very rhythmic and meditative in that experience.

In fact, I read a book from a monk back in my early 20s about a monk who used marathon running as an active meditation.

You don't have to think of this as a very specified practice.

There's a lot of wiggle room here.

And so find what works for you and make that an epically valuable part of your day.

So how has this worked for you?

I want to hear from you.

If you do meditate, why?

And if you don't, why not?

Email me, Jeff@JeffSanders.com.

Tell me about your experience.

I want to hear whether or not this topic fits you well.

I've got ideas for new podcasts that I want to launch.

One of those ideas is probably the most important on my mind right now.

Is one that directly involves meditation at the core of what it is.

And so I definitely want to hear from you.

Whether this is a resonating topic for you, whether it's a necessary healthy habit for you, or whether it's just some kind of frilly self-help thing that you don't care about.

I want to hear all the perspectives.

So once again, email me, Jeff@JeffSanders.com.

And for the action step this week, design a personal and repeatable meditation practice.

Now I wasn't a fan of meditation until I customized it to work for me.

So create a simple but doable practice you can come back to again and again when you need it.

The best way to begin is just to start and figure out what works for you.

If meditation has not been a consistent habit before, let this season be the one that makes that possible.

Now of course be sure to subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app.

You can also go to JeffSanders.com/subscribe to see a whole bunch of apps you can choose from.

Or become a VIP member of the 5 AM Miracle community by getting the premium ad-free version with exclusive bonus episodes at 5ammiraclepremium.com.

That's all I've got for you here on the 5 AM Miracle podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life and the fun begins bright and early.

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