You feel stressed. You feel anxious. Restless even.
Not all the time. But when you do, it’s overwhelming. If only there was a way to deal with those feelings…
Something you could use no matter where you are. Something that would allow you to look at your life from a healthy distance.
Oh, wait. It exists. It’s called mindfulness meditation.
Even a 5-minute meditation can help you change the angle from which you look at your problems. It’s always available, and it only requires two things: your attention and your breath.
If you’re new to mindfulness, it may be difficult to start meditating on your own. There are so many questions. Am I doing this right? Do I need to sit in a lotus pose? Do I have to breathe in a special way? And what about taming the mind that jumps from one thought to another?
To get you started, I recorded 5-minute meditations for different intentions. These are guided meditations, which means you don’t have to overthink anything — just sit down, follow my voice and practise.
In this post, you’ll find the following recordings:
- 5-minute meditation for anxiety,
- 5-minute meditation for the morning,
- 5-minute meditation for focus,
- 5-minute meditation for sleep,
- 5-minute for spiritual healing.
You can also download the recordings by signing up here:
How Effective Are 5-Minute Meditations?
I’ll be honest with you: a 5-minute meditation isn’t going to solve your problems overnight.
A lot of guided meditations promise to instantly “make you feel peaceful” or “reduce stress.” But this isn’t what meditation is about.
Not mindfulness meditation, anyway.
The goal of mindfulness isn’t to make you feel better by erasing challenges. Rather, in the words of Michael Brown, the real goal is to “become better at feeling.”
What does this accomplish?
By becoming more aware of your moment-to-moment experience, you get a more accurate picture of your life. You’re more aware of your thoughts and emotions. Over time, you discover that anxiety and stress aren’t the direct causes of your suffering.
It’s your resistance to them that makes your life unnecessarily hard.
But don’t just take my word for it. Mindfulness meditation allows you to experience this for yourself. By following your breath, along with observing thoughts and feelings, you will see how you create your own suffering.
To grasp that, you need a consistent meditation habit. But it’s helpful to start with something small. Doing a 5-minute meditation every day will allow you to establish a habit. Once that’s in place, you’ll be able to gradually extend your meditation sessions.
In other words, a 5-minute meditation in itself may not save you. But there’s a very good chance it will become the first step on your mindfulness journey.
And here’s a secret about all the great journeys ever taken: They all started with the first step.
Are you ready to take yours?
The 5-Minute Meditation For Anxiety
If you struggle with an anxious mind, mindfulness meditation may help. Numerous studies have shown that participants of 8-week MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) programs noticed lower levels of anxiety and stress after the course. Other mental health benefits, such as reduced levels of emotional exhaustion and depression, were also reported.
But what causes anxiety in the first place? Aside from external factors, such as traumatic childhood or stressful environment, your mental habits are hugely responsible for anxiety.
In short, anxiety is a result of believing your negative thoughts. Make no mistake, we all have them. Fearful scenarios of losing a job, worrying about our kids’ future, or whether we made a good impression on our in-laws — these are just a few examples of thoughts many people face.
What matters is whether you can recognize those as thoughts — or, you treat them as facts. In the latter case, anxiety skyrockets. You start believing in catastrophic scenarios that haven’t even happened.
The below 5-minute mindfulness meditation can help you alleviate anxiety. It teaches you to recognize that your thoughts and feelings are only passing events in the mind. You can learn how to take a step back and look at them as if they were clouds in the sky. They come and go, and they don’t impact the colour of the blue sky behind them.
PRACTICAL NOTE: When you start meditating, uncomfortable thoughts and feelings may appear to be amplified. This usually doesn’t mean they’re worsening. The reason they seem stronger is that you started paying more attention to them. Don’t become too concerned and observe this process. Remember: the uncomfortable thoughts are the short-lived clouds. You are the sky that remains.
Download the full meditation package by signing up below:
The 5-Minute Meditation For The Morning
Morning routines are among one of the most popular self-improvement topics. And that’s for a good reason. The way you spend the first moments after waking up sets the tone for the rest of your day.
Some people begin their mornings by immediately jumping on their phones, reading news and catching up on social updates. This is a sure way to put yourself under stress. You enter a reactive state where it’s easy to feel like all that information is urgent and you need to take action immediately.
Don’t do this to yourself.
Morning meditation is a better alternative to start your day. What if, instead of checking your phone, you checked in with yourself first? Even a 5-minute meditation in the morning can put you in a different frame of mind. You give yourself a better chance to begin the day with mindfulness, calm and gratitude.
I recorded this 5-minute meditation for the morning to help you tackle the day with a more positive attitude and peace.
PRACTICAL NOTE: Don’t put pressure on yourself to feel grateful, peaceful or in any particular way at all. This can certainly be your intention for the morning meditation — but you can’t force yourself into feeling peaceful. Allow yourself to welcome the thoughts and emotions that are arising. If you learn to accept discomfort, gratitude may come effortlessly, almost like a “side effect.”
Download the full meditation package by signing up below:
The 5-Minute Meditation For Focus
The idea behind mindfulness is balancing two types of focus: broad and narrow. Some meditation teachers refer to them as “pointed attention” and “peripheral awareness.” When you learn how to coordinate them, your cognitive capacity improves.
You may understand this is by imagining a football player in the middle of the match. He needs to focus on the ball to make sure he doesn’t lose it (pointed attention). At the same time, he must maintain a broader awareness of the pitch to know to whom and when he can pass the ball (peripheral awareness).
One isn’t more important than the other and both are needed for the player to succeed in the game.
Balancing open awareness and pointed attention may be one of the most practical skills that mindfulness meditation teaches you. In the era of digital distractions and short attention span, many people struggle with their attention spans. Seeing how broad and narrow focus work in meditation can help you wield attention more effectively in daily life.
In this 5-minute meditation for focus, we will explore how you can work with bringing your attention to a chosen object. You’ll also have a chance to notice how your attention becomes hijacked by the objects in your peripheral awareness.
PRACTICAL NOTE: It’s natural for the mind to wander. Don’t beat yourself up if it happens — it most certainly will. The most efficient way to train your attention is to bring it back to the breath gently, even with a smile. Try to look for positive emotions in response to remembering your breath. This technique is called “positive reinforcement” and it helps your mind associate the act of remembering the breath with something positive. This way, you’ll be more likely to regain focus in the future.
Download the full meditation package by signing up below:
The 5-Minute Meditation For Sleep
Just like the morning meditation helps you set the right tone for the day, a 5-minute meditation just before bed can help you wind down and prepare for sleep.
What’s the reason you can’t fall asleep? It’s possible that you just don’t make a transition between the activities of the day and the night’s rest. Some of us get sucked into social media or work until late at night. Others can’t take their mind off the problems they’re trying to solve.
A lot of this mental activity is then “picked up” by the body and causes your muscles to contract. You may not even be aware of it. Maybe you accepted this tension as something so common that you treat it as your default state.
The below 5-minute meditation for sleep helps you bring your attention to your body, without trying to shut off the thoughts. Due to something psychologists call “the ironic processes of mental control,” if you try too hard to stop thinking about something, those thoughts are likely to prevail in your mind even more.
That’s why, in this 5-minute meditation for sleep, we’ll focus primarily on the body and exploring where it may feel tense.
PRACTICAL NOTE: For this meditation, I strongly encourage you to download it. This way, you won’t need to go online just before bed. This will save you screen time in the evening which has been proven to disrupt sleep patterns.
Download the full meditation package by signing up below:
The 5-Minute Meditation For Spiritual Healing
Spiritual healing occurs through acceptance. When you’re able to accept your experiences exactly as they are, they don’t seem “wrong” or “off” anymore. Gradually, you start seeing them as valid and even necessary material for personal growth.
Of course, most people have a harder time accepting “negative” emotions than “positive” ones. But here’s the thing: dividing our experiences into “negative” and “positive” is precisely what causes us to desire some feelings and push away others.
With mindfulness meditation, you can discover that the feelings you’ve been running away from all your life are not half as horrible as you thought. You learn to relax into them and realize they’re temporary. This way, you can see that it’s possible to welcome them as just another aspect of your experience.
The Buddha taught that suffering isn’t synonymous with pain. Rather, suffering is born when we want our experience to be different from what it already is. So, when you learn to accept all your experiences — rather than avoiding them — healing occurs.
This 5-minute meditation for spiritual healing is all about opening yourself to your emotions. In my experience, this practice, if done consistently, leads to healing.
PRACTICAL NOTE: Don’t become concerned if you can’t feel much or you’re overwhelmed with your emotions. Chances are, no one taught you how to consciously work with feelings. This is new ground. If you were told to suppress your feelings all your life, you may initially find it hard to tune in to them. Like with many other things in life, this is a matter of practice.
Download the full meditation package by signing up below:
How To Make The Most Out Of Your 5-Minute Meditation
With the guided 5-minute meditations above, there’s not much more to say about what you need to do during the practice. My voice will guide you. All you need to do is follow along and remain as present as you can.
However, I have a few tips on how to approach mindfulness meditation. They include some practical suggestions for setting up meditation space — and your mindset.
The latter ones insure you against sabotaging your practice.
So, here we go. Here’s a handful of tips to make the most out of your 5-minute meditation.
Practical Tips
- Set a space for your meditation. It doesn’t need to be fancy — just ensure you’ll be comfortable and that no one will disturb you. Tell people with whom you share your house that you need a few minutes of privacy. You can also just choose to meditate when they’re busy doing their own thing. You want this meditation to be your time, so minimize distractions.
- Decide on the same time and spot. Meditating at the same time of day helps you stay consistent. Your mind will get used to the new activity more easily. Try to make it happen in the same place and time every day — e.g. on the cushion in your bedroom, right after breakfast.
- Find a posture that makes you both alert and relaxed. Even though moving meditation is a thing, I recommend you to start by being still. A still posture encourages your mind to slow down and makes it easier to focus on the practice.
If you’re sitting down, adjust the posture to be reasonably comfortable, but not slouchy. This means you want to keep your spine erect, your chest open and your chin high. If you’re doing the 5-minute meditation for sleep (or can’t sit for other meditations), you can also lie down and relax your body completely. - Pick the meditation attribute (optional). If you want to prime your mind for meditation, you may pick an object that you’ll associate with it. This could mean lighting a candle, picking your favourite shawl to wrap around your shoulders, or preparing a favourite hot beverage. You don’t need to do this — but some people like to have an attribute to settle into the “meditation headspace” more easily.
Mindset Tips
- Be gentle with yourself. Many people in our culture learn to approach everything as a challenge. This is how society functions — you’re constantly encouraged to prove your worth by doing things the “right” way.
Try to leave this attitude behind when you sit down to meditate. It creates tension that doesn’t support your practice. Instead, treat every meditation session as an accomplishment in itself. - Drop your expectations. Even though in this post you found 5-minute meditation for anxiety or 5-minute meditation for focus, don’t try to force these outcomes. No matter how badly you want them, sometimes the expected outcomes don’t happen.
This in itself is a precious lesson in letting go of control. Although you can hope for a particular result (e.g. easing anxiety), you can’t guarantee it. Instead of setting expectations, formulate an intention — and remain flexible throughout the practice. - Remind yourself that every experience is valid. In Buddhism (where mindfulness meditation originated) everything happens according to the law of cause and effect. It means that your experience is a (sometimes indirect) effect of your previous actions. This includes the uncomfortable thoughts or feelings that you may encounter during meditation.
Because of the cycle of cause and effect, nothing that happens to you is seen as random. Every experience is a potential source of insight and wisdom. Try to look at it from this perspective. Don’t dismiss your thoughts or feelings as something that “shouldn’t” be happening. - Remember that every experience is going to pass. That’s just the nature of life and you’re about to discover it through meditation. No matter how painful or pleasant, every experience ends at some point. You may find this to be a relief because it means two things:
- Pleasant things will pass, so you may as well enjoy them while they last.
- Difficult things will pass, so there’s no reason to run away from them.
FAQ
Below, you’ll find answers to some of the most frequent questions people ask about 5-minute meditation.
How do you do a 5-minute meditation?
To do a 5-minute meditation, all you need is your breath. You can meditate in many places — in commute, during a walk in the part, or on a cushion in your home.
If you never meditated before, the easiest way to start is at home — a place where you (hopefully) feel safe. Sit comfortably on a chair or cushion and start following your breath. You may close your eyes to support focus.
Observe how the in-breath is followed by an out-breath, and vice versa.
Mindfulness meditation can be practised through simply following the physical sensations of the breath. You can pick a place in your body where you feel your breath the strongest — and focus your attention there.
Whenever you notice that your mind wandered off, don’t become concerned. That’s natural. Bring your attention back to the breath and start following it again. You may try counting breaths if that helps.
This is all you need to do a 5-minute meditation.
Is 5-minute meditation enough?
The answer depends on what you want to accomplish. If you’re new to mindfulness, then a daily 5-minute meditation is a great way to start. However, if you want to access deep insights and reap greater rewards of meditation, you should probably consider extending your meditation sessions over time.
You can think of it as a workout. A 5-minute run is certainly better than no exercise at all. It regulates your blood pressure, ventilates your body and gives you an endorphin boost. There are clear benefits to it.
But if you want to build stamina and eventually be able to run 10k, 5-minute runs won’t cut it. You will need to intensify your workouts to achieve the desired results.
It’s the same with a 5-minute meditation. Doing it is more beneficial than no meditation at all. But if you want to get to know yourself better, improve your cognitive functions or ultimately get deep insights into the nature of human experience — you’ll need more than 5 minutes for that.
How can I instantly meditate?
A beautiful thing about meditation is that it doesn’t require any preparation or equipment. As you go about your day, you can decide to meditate for a few minutes whenever and wherever you want.
First, turn your focus inward and check in with yourself. This may require you to pause whatever you were doing. Close that book you were reading, turn off the computer, turn the music down. Closing your eyes is recommended — it usually makes it easier to focus on the inner sensations.
Once you redirected your attention inwards, place it on your breath. You’re always breathing whether you remember about it or not. In mindfulness meditation, you become more aware of your breath and the physical sensations that come with it.
When you wish to finish the meditation, gently open your eyes and go back to your activities. Try to bring the heightened awareness you just experienced to whatever you’re doing afterwards.
Can meditation be dangerous?
If you consider yourself mentally healthy, mindfulness meditation shouldn’t be dangerous for you. Yes, it may expose uncomfortable feelings or thoughts that you weren’t aware of before. But as long as you can see that these are just events happening in the mind (and not who you are), this shouldn’t be a problem.
Remember to always cultivate the attitude of kindness towards yourself. It can protect you in the most challenging moments. Whatever happens in your meditation, you can remain an equanimous, compassionate observer.
If you struggle with mental health issues or illnesses, such as schizophrenia, depression or suicidal thoughts (or other), you should consult a professional before meditating. It may be that the safest for you is to meditate with the guidance of a trained meditation teacher or psychologist.
You may also combine meditation practice with therapy – in person or online. If you need help with finding the right therapist online, here’s a well-researched article on the topic that includes reviews of online therapy websites.
Next Step: Download the 5-Minute Meditation Package
As I mentioned in the beginning, I can’t promise that a 5-minute meditation will solve all your problems. To experience the biggest benefits of mindfulness, you may need to meditate a bit longer than that.
Over time, you’ll see how your well-being and mental health improve.
The first step is to build a consistent meditation habit. For that, doing a daily 5-minute meditation is a great place to start.
I’m sure you can carve that much time in your day to squeeze in a practice. When you do, you’ll start seeing first-hand what mindfulness meditation can do for you. You’ll naturally become motivated to practice longer and more regularly.
To have the recordings handy when you need them, you can download my 5-Minute Meditation Package as mp3 files. It features all the recordings from this post — plus a bonus 5-minute meditation for grounding.
All you need to do is sign up in the box below and I’ll send you a download link:
I've immersed myself in vast literature, seminars, and insightful discussions over the years, shaping my passion for self-awareness. Here, you'll find valuable articles, interviews, and resources designed for your self-discovery. I prioritize actionable wisdom, providing tools for real-world personal growth.
- Self Harm Awareness Ribbon Color: Unveiling Its Meaning - August 21, 2023
- What Is Emotional Self Awareness: A Guide to Inner Growth - August 21, 2023
- Self Harm Awareness Bracelets: Show Support and Share Hope - August 21, 2023
