Over the years at our meditation center in Northern California and working with my students online, one of the most common questions I get is about how to actually build a daily practice. Starting a daily meditation practice can seem daunting, but you only need to take it one day at a time.

I’ll go through a few different points in this post:

Why Meditate Regularly?

From a practice perspective, I have found meditation to be most useful with continuity. A few minutes of meditation every day beats one half-hour session as far as the benefits of meditation go. I have seen this in my own practice, as well as in the lives of my students.

The research we have does support this. A 2023 study of over 280,000 people using meditation apps found that consistency of practice was more indicative of mood improvements, equanimity, and resilience than session length. The study also found that longer gaps and inconsistent practice were linked with smaller improvements and weaker long-term adherence.

A recent longitudinal study from 2025 followed meditators for four years, and found similar results. Again the people who meditated more frequently saw improvements in well-being and psychological stress. The length of the sessions (how long people meditated for) was less important than frequency.

Finally, another 2025 study looked specifically at frequency while controlling the total amount of time. People either meditated for twenty minutes at once, or twice for ten minutes in this study. As you might expect at this point, those who meditated twice for ten minutes had slightly better improvements than the other group.

All of this is to say that meditation is something best done regularly. If we want to cultivate the qualities of mindfulness, awareness, and compassion, we can best do this by building a daily meditation practice. To give ourselves the best chance at seeing some of the benefits of meditation in our lives, a daily practice is the way to go.

Tips for Building a Daily Meditation Practice

So, how do we actually start a regular meditation practice? I have a few tips I often offer students, talk about in my book, and offer frequently in groups. These are tips that can hopefully help you find your own personal routine with meditation.

Connect with Intentions

Before even starting your meditation practice, it can be helpful to connect with intentions. Note that I don’t say “set an intention.” I use this language because the truth is we all have intentions already within ourselves.

You are being called to practice for some reason. Connect with those intentions. Maybe you want to be more present in life, change your relationship to anxiety, or be a kinder person. See if you can connect with these intentions by pausing and tuning into them.

Having a wholesome intention can help drive our practice. When we don’t feel like meditating or forget what we’re doing it for, our deep intentions can help give us some motivation and drive to practice.

Create Time and Space

One of the most common barriers I hear to starting a meditation practice is not being able to find the time. I get it. We have busy lives, plenty of responsibilities, and only so many hours in the day.

In my experience, we have to make meditation a priority by setting aside time for it. To start, you only need a few minutes a day. You might try waking up just five minutes earlier to get it done in the morning. Or perhaps you can meditate at night before turning the television on or opening your book.

If you can, try to meditate at the same time and in the same place every day. This builds consistency. You can meditate at any time of the day, but as I discuss in our post Should I Meditate in the Morning or at Night?, we generally build new habits more easily in the morning!

Start Small

You don’t need to jump right into thirty minute meditation sessions to build a daily practice. In fact, I think this can be detrimental. If we try to start with long sessions, many things can happen. We might find excuses related to time more easily, we experience discomfort during our sessions, and we allow ourselves to skip days as we meditated for so long yesterday.

Instead, start small and approachable. If you are completely new to meditation, I recommend starting with five minutes a day. If you have some experience, you might try ten minutes a day. Do what feels doable to you, and don’t aim too high.

As mentioned in the studies at the beginning of this post, consistency beats length. Rather than shooting for twenty minutes every other day, aim for ten minutes every day. Make it a part of your daily routine. You can check out my playlist of ten minute meditations for a good start!

Set Realistic Goals

I often meet with students who have meditated here and there and wonder why they aren’t serene and calm yet. Meditation is not a magic pill that will change your experience after a few sessions. Coming into practice with unrealistic expectations is a setup for disappointment.

When connecting with goals and intentions, we have to keep ourselves in check to make sure they are realistic. Remember that meditation is a training and takes time. Practice patience, and give yourself time to train!

Listen to Guidance

There are countless opportunities out there to practice freely with various teachers around the world. Rather than sitting in silence wondering what you should be doing, listen to guided meditations to get clear instruction for your practice.

You can find some of my favorite mindfulness and meditation podcasts here, my own personal podcast here, and plenty of guided meditations on my YouTube channel here. I also recommend the InsightTimer app for plenty of guided meditations, talks, and a meditation timer!

Investigate Mindfulness in Daily Life

To help find some consistency with your mindfulness practice, begin considering it in daily life outside of meditation. This can help us to find continuity with practice, see how our cultivation is impacting our experience, and build new habits.

There are many ways to practice mindfulness in everyday life. One of my favorite ways is to use what I call awareness triggers or mindfulness reminders. You can find something that happens regularly, such as your phone ringing or buzzing. Every time you hear your phone ring or vibrate, use it as an opportunity to return to mindfulness with a few deep breaths.

Practicing like this during daily life can help us in our meditation practice overall. It keeps the brain oriented toward awareness and presence, and we can often see how mindfulness comes more naturally with practice.

See Opportunities

My final tip is an important one. Regardless of what is happening during your practice, recognize the opportunities arising. Every session of meditation won’t be calm and serene. You will come up against painful emotions, difficult thoughts, and discomfort in the body. It is inevitable.

These moments offer plenty of opportunity to cultivate mindfulness and compassion. Rather than seeing the wandering mind or outside sounds as distractions or problems, treat them as opportunities. Utilize these experiences to get to know the mind and its responses/reactions.

Meditation Practices for Beginners

There are plenty of different meditation practices out there. I remember being new to meditation and looking for guidance online. I quickly became overwhelmed with just how many different types of meditation there were.

You really can start wherever you want, but there are a few practices that I’ve found work well for those new to meditation. I choose these because they are relatively simple and experiential. You don’t need a ton of understanding or reading to practice with these techniques. All you need is to actually meditate!

If you are new to meditation and mindfulness, I recommend checking out my Guide to Mindfulness for Beginners to get started. It covers what exactly mindfulness is, common questions and struggles, practical tips, and how to get started!

Concentration Meditation

As the name suggests, concentrative meditation is a practice in which we cultivate the ability to concentrate! In the context of mindfulness, concentration is the ability to collect our awareness and place it on one object.

This is most commonly done by placing the attention on the breath in something like a breath counting meditation. We gather up our awareness, and place it gently on the breath. When the mind wanders off, we simply re-gather the awareness and return to the sensation of hte body breathing.

Although concentration meditation may be difficult at first, it’s essential along the path. Concentration supports mindfulness by allowing us to be fully present and tuned into the experiences arising and passing. Furthermore, concentration can actually lead to states of ease and contentment that offer a reprieve from the active mind.

Mindfulness of the Body

Another great place to start is with mindfulness of the body. The body is always with us, and offers a consistent place for us to place our attention. Emotional experiences also arise in the body, and mindfulness of the body practices can help us see emotions more clearly.

This may be done through mindfulness of the breath, body scan meditations, walking meditation, or open body awareness. I’ve included a couple different practices in working with the body for you to try below!

Loving-Kindness Meditation

Finally, it is often helpful to incorporate metta, or loving-kindness, right from the beginning. Many of us have the tendency toward judgement, harshness, or even anger during meditation practice. Loving-kindness practice helps us to respond with more kindness and gentleness both to others and our own thoughts/experience.

I’ve covered some research about the benefits of loving-kindness meditation on my blog that I recommend checking out if you’re unsure. It’s important to note that we can also build concentration through metta, so it’s a great way to cultivate both!

Common Difficulties

Meditation is not all easy and peaceful. We have an image of someone meditating calmly, forgetting that what is going on in their experience may not be calm at all. There are plenty of difficulties we might face while starting a meditation practice, but there are plenty of solutions as well.

Monkey Mind

I believe the term monkey mind comes from Chinese Buddhist texts where it is used to describe a mind that bounces around from thought to thought. Monkey mind is an experience where the mind struggles to settle on any object of awareness and instead wants to swing from one thought to the next.

It is a common experience, especially in those new to meditation. There are many ways to work with a monkey mind, including returning to the breath repeatedly, cultivating loving-kindness, and practicing walking meditation. If you find yourself up against monkey mind, I recommend reading this post for some tips.

Sleepiness and Agitation

Both sleepiness and agitation are also common in meditation practice. Although they seem like opposites, they really are two sides to the same coin. Sleepiness is a lack of energy, while agitation or restlessness is too much misplaced energy. These are part of the five hindrances, which are five mental states that commonly hinder our concentration in meditation practice.

To deal with either, we might consider switching from sitting meditation to walking meditation. This can help us either bring energy to our practice in the case of sleepiness, or get rid of some energy in the case of restlessness.

As with all the five hindrances, we can also work with these experiences by simply bringing awareness to them. Pay attention to what it feels like to be sleepy or restless. Don’t try to fight it or combat it; simply pay attention to it.

You might also consider outside factors influencing your practice. For example, meditating at night can induce sleepiness. Drinking coffee before meditating can lead to restlessness. Recognize any changes you might make to your life to support your practice.

Discomfort in the Body

Sitting still is hard, and can cause some discomfort in the body. Furthermore, as we collect the mind and sit in silence, existing discomforts may become more prominent in our attention. Feeling pains, itches, or soreness is simply a part of meditation practice.

When you first start meditating, remember that it is perfectly okay to shift positions if you need. We don’t need to stick to the perfectly still ideal we have in our minds in every moment. Use your discernment to decide if you can sit through it or need to make an adjustment.

You might also try responding with compassion. Instead of trying to rid yourself of discomfort, respond with care and gentleness. Meet it with a tender heart and care. Over time, we can change our relationship to these discomforts to grow less reactive and more compassionate.

Strong Emotions

Much as physical discomforts may arise during meditation practice, emotional or psychological difficulties may arise. As we rest in quiet, emotional experiences like guilt, anxiety, or grief can come up without warning.

If you feel overwhelmingly activated, be prepared to pause your meditation and open your eyes. If you feel able to, respond with compassion once again. Watch the experience, recognize how it is impacting both your mind and body, and care for it.

Knowing What to Do

There have been countless times students have shared with me that they simply don’t know what to do in practice. This is partially because of the many different ways to meditate, and partially due to meditating without any guidance.

If you’re unsure of what you should be doing during meditation, listen to guidance! Even after years of meditating, I still use guided meditations sometimes myself. It can help us to have direction with our practice and leave less space for the mind to wander or figure out what to do.

If you’re unsure of what type of meditation to do, try finding one practice and sticking with it. I often recommend my students sit with one type of meditation for extended periods. By sticking to just concentration, for example, we can really grow to understand it and build on the previous days of practice.

Judging the Experience

Finally, don’t judge or try to qualify your meditation experience. One sit isn’t good or bad. It might be concentrated or distracted, settled or agitated, etc. But even the difficult sessions are good. Every experience in meditation serves a purpose and helps our cultivation.

If you have a very distracted meditation session and sit through it, you’re training the mind in resilience. You also can practice mindfulness of the active mind and get to know the thinking mind more clearly. Let go of needing to label any period of meditation as good or bad, and simply be with whatever the experience has to offer.

How to Get Started

To get started with meditation, you need to just sit! We can read everything we want to about meditation, but the real benefit comes from truly practicing. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of what I generally do with students who wish to start a daily meditation practice.

Check Your Intention - You might do this by writing in a journal or notebook, or simply sitting somewhere silently and reflecting. Remember that you don’t need to manufacture an intention; just connect with one already within you. What is driving you to investigate and practice?
Create a Schedule - I know it may seem silly to schedule meditation, but this is an incredibly useful step. When can you meditate? Maybe you have time in your day already, or you will need to create time. Remember it only needs to be a few minutes. Give yourself a schedule and a plan you can stick to so that you have the best chance at building a long-term habit.
Choose a Practice - You don’t need to stick with the practice you choose from the start, but it’s good to have an idea of what you will be doing. Pick one practice to investigate for the first week. As mentioned, I recommend starting with concentration, mindfulness of the breath, or loving-kindness.
Meditate - With your intention, schedule, and plan for practice, get going with your meditation. Sit at the time you set aside with the practice you set out to do. Remember the tips about not setting unrealistic expectations, and just see what arises in your experience. I do recommend finding guided meditations if you are new to practice.
Keep Notes - After your periods of meditation, take some notes about your experience. This can help us process our experience during meditation, clarify things, and show overall patterns. It doesn’t need to be a long, prompted journal entry. Simply note down anything that stood out to you.

If you want support in starting a practice, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at Matthew@TheMindfulCounselor.me. I answer every single email, and am always happy to help point you in the right direction!

How to Start a Daily Meditation Practice: Tips and Guidance for Beginners