Two-Minute Mindfulness - 10 Free Practices
This post is a request from a student in the Thursday Morning Meditation group. This person shared privately that they don’t often have time to meditate for longer periods, and wanted to know about finding shorter mindfulness breaks throughout the day. As this is a question I’ve received many times over the years, I want to offer a few short practices you can use.
I’ll cover why short meditation periods can be beneficial, share ten short guided meditations you can use, and offer a few tips that can be useful in your practice. If you are looking for more short meditations, check out the Month of Mindfulness program. It’s a free online program where you receive a 3-6 minute meditation every day directly to your inbox. It’s aimed to help introduce you to different types of meditation practices and build a daily habit with short, accessible meditations.
The Benefit of Short Meditation Periods
I find that many students have a tendency to over-value long sitting periods. Yes, longer periods can provide a deeper level of samadhi, or concentration. But for many of us, shorter periods are enough to support mindfulness throughout the day and help our practice.
Consistency
Really, we perhaps should focus more on continuity and consistency than on meditation length. Both my experience and peer-reviewed research show that practicing regularly is more beneficial than practicing for long periods. I cover this more in my post For How Long Should Beginners Meditate?
Accessibility
For many people, especially newcomers to meditation, shorter meditation periods are much more accessible. Sitting for thirty minutes may be an absolute grind, and keep people from trying meditation again. Sitting in a two minute meditation practice is manageable, and makes the practices of mindfulness and compassion approachable and pragmatic.
The Middle Way
We may find ourselves with an all-or-nothing mindset related to meditation. We either meditate for thirty minutes or don’t meditate at all. Instead, we can practice the Middle Way. The all-or-nothing attitude doesn’t serve us. Practicing with shorter meditation periods is often practical for people and offers a balanced way to practice that feels supportive and useful.
Daily Mindfulness
Short meditation periods, especially when scattered about the day, can help encourage mindfulness in daily life. These short periods of mindfulness help keep awareness at the forefront of our minds. Even when I do sit for longer periods in the morning, I try to mix in a few periods of a couple minutes throughout my day. It really supports continuity of mindfulness quite well.
2 Minute Mindfulness Meditations
Here are a few guided practices you can use for a two-minute mindfulness break. Just a note, not all of these are mindfulness practices directly. I do offer a couple of practices of the heart at the end. You can listen on YouTube, or enter your email address below to get a download link for all ten.
Collecting the Attention
This is a simple concentration meditation using the breath as the object of our awareness. It’s a useful practice to collect the attention, refocus the mind, and arrive in the present. This practice is a breath counting meditation, which I find useful as it gives the mind something to focus on.
Grounding in the Body
There are many grounding exercises you can use during your day to return to the present moment. Grounding exercises are a mindful way to engage the parasympathetic nervous system, creating a sense of calm and ease. They can especially be helpful in moments of stress or activation.
Listening Meditation
We often use the sense-doors of feeling (in the body or with the breath) or even thinking in meditation. But we can also use the experience of hearing to bring us to the present moment. This is a quick listening meditation in which we practice hearing the sounds as they arise and pass.
Softening with the Breath
This is a practice I often use at the beginning of my longer sits, and randomly throughout the day. It’s a great way to incorporate both the breath and the body, and can help us relax and soften the body. We simply use the breath to support both alertness and relaxation in the body, creating a solid combination for mindfulness to arise.
Open Awareness
This is a straightforward two minute guided meditation in open awareness. We sit with and open and accepting attitude, recognizing what is arising and passing in our experience. Practice in this way helps us observe without judgement, and grow to understand experience more clearly.
Mindfulness of Thoughts
Here we have a short meditation practice in observing thoughts without judgement. For perhaps obvious reasons, mindfulness of thoughts can be a very helpful practice. We learn thoughts are not facts, see the impermanent nature of thoughts, and stop identifying so strongly with the thinking mind.
Feeling Tones
Feeling tones are a core part of experience, but one we often neglect. This is a two minute guided meditation looking at vedana via open awareness. We note what is arising into experience, and whether it is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Practicing with feeling tones helps us see experience more clearly and can help us detach from habitual mental reactions.
Loving-Kindness
Now into some heart practices. This is a loving-kindness meditation for ourselves. There are many benefits of loving-kindness. We learn to speak more kindly to ourselves, respond with gentleness to our own experience and others, and can build concentration through this practice. In this guided meditation we work with ourselves, but you can also work with another person in your life if you wish.
Self-Compassion
This is a practice in karuna, or compassion. Compassion is what happens when loving-kindness comes into contact with suffering. We’ll bring to mind a way in which we’ve experienced some suffering recently, and work to extend compassion toward ourselves. This is a great practice to use when you’re struggling, experiencing anxiety or stress, or feel that you need some care for a hurt.
Appreciating Joy
Finally, we have a practice in appreciative joy. This is the quality of rejoicing in the happiness of ourselves and others. With this guided meditation, we’ll bring to mind some joy we’ve experienced. We will then extend phrases of appreciative joy with the intention to show up for and appreciate the joy we experience.
Practice Tips
Here are a few tips for you while working with these 2 minute meditations. Remember that mindfulness takes time, and to practice some patience. The tips below aim to help you get the most out of your practice and make it as fruitful as possible.
Meditate Regularly
I mention this in nearly every post and talk. I cover it in my post How Often Should Beginners Meditate? Consistency is more important than length! I encourage you to practice regularly for a few weeks and see how it serves you. Regular practice gives us the ability to deepen our mindfulness. For some tips on building a regular practice, you can read this post.
Practice on the Go
If you are busy and find it hard to find the time to meditate, don’t forget you can always meditate on the go. You don’t need to find two or five minutes to sit and meditate. You can practice on the go with walking meditation, mindful eating, or any of the practices above. You don’t need to be sitting still to practice most of these!
Let Go of Expectations
We often hold on to what we think meditation should feel like. Or perhaps what benefits meditation will offer us. I encourage you to recognize where expectations are clouding your practice. Can you meet experience as it is, not as you want it to be? Often, expectations in practice are a form of craving. Let go of the craving and be with what is actually present for you.
Find a Community
Finally, consider practicing with a community, or sangha. You can always join us for one of our free weekly meditation classes here, or look at the directory of online meditation groups. If you don’t have time or aren’t ready to practice with a community, join our WhatsApp group! It’s a great place to support one another with mindfulness, learn from each other, and find resources for practice.
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Matthew Sockolov is a Buddhist meditation teacher who trained at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Completing the Dharma Leader training program in 2017, Matthew was given power to teach in the Insight Meditation tradition by Jack Kornfield, Kittisaro, Thanissara, and others. You can learn more about Matthew here.