In today’s world, thanks to the ever increasing popularity of meditation in the tech startup world, there are so many geeks that are either learning to meditate or already practicing meditation. By “geeks”, I mean very detail-minded and super intelligent people. Very often, this group of people like to find out what is the optimal way to do a certain task. Meditation is no difference. Many people are trying to optimize the positive effect of meditation. One very common question that get asked very often regarding to optimizing meditation is: what is the best time to do meditation? In this blog post, not only will I share my take on what the best time of the day is to meditate. I will also talk about some special situations and why there are the best times to meditate.
First, Decide How Much Meditation You Need Everyday
Let’s first seek the best time of the day you should perform meditation. But before that, it is better to find out how much meditation you actually need. First, let’s revisit the only purpose of meditation. You simply want to clear your mind. That’s it. I don’t care whether your actual goal is to be become a successful entrepreneur, a world-class athlete or what. Meditation can help make you move towards your goal but the main top-level goal of meditation to achieve a clear mind and anything else are simply by-products of having a clear mind. So, it is reasonable to say that the amount of meditation we need each day is the amount that can make our mind clear enough the entire day. There is no better way to find that out than doing trial-and-error. Let me give you a starting point that is highly recommended by a lot of people. Try start with 20 minutes of meditation in the morning and 20 minutes before dinner or before sleep. Try to reduce the amount from this starting point. You may even reduce the amount to one time a day instead of having two times a day.
Meditation in the Morning is the Best
After you have find your optimal amount of daily meditation, some of you may even reduce to only meditating once a day. In that case, I highly recommend you to do your only meditation of the day in the morning. Preferably before you have any type of communication or contact with your co-workers. I am saying that your co-workers are bad, but there are good reasons for that. First, a big reason why you meditate is to prepare your mind to deal with your coworkers and your clients. It simply defeats the purpose of meditation if you meditate after you have dealt with them. In other words, your mind is not in its best shape when you deal with your coworkers and that means you are not enjoying the benefit of meditation. Second, once you start working with your coworkers, there is a good chance that your busy day is going to force you to skip meditation. Not everyone has a good working environment where he or she can comfortably and quietly meditate.
Where Do I Place My Second Meditation of the Day?
For those of you who need to meditate a second time in the day, there is a common question of when the second meditation should be, before dinner or before sleep? While suggesting to you to make the morning meditation the most important session is a no-brainer, suggesting to you when you should do your second meditation is more subjective but I will try to explain as well as possible the reasons why.
The Pros of Having Your Second Meditation before Dinner
Let me cut down to the chase here. I definitely think that having a meditation session of 10 to 20 minutes before dinner, after work is the best time for having a second meditation session. My reason is simple and hopefully strong enough to persuade you. Assuming that you are having dinner with your family, there is no better thing that having a cheerful and enjoyable conversation with your family members at dinner time. Without a clear mind that is a result of meditation, you may fail to put away the stress the you have accumulated during your whole day of work. If you do meditation before dinner, you should be able to feel relaxed and calm and you will enjoy some really good time with your family at the dinner. After dinner, just try to keep yourself away from work, so that your mind remains relaxed and clear and you can go to bed in a very good mood.
Don’t Meditate Three Times a Day
Mediation is good but that doesn’t mean that you can do infinite amount of it. It is like you are going to eat way too much healthy food. Healthy food is only healthy to your health when you take the right amount. The same thing goes for meditation. I think meditating for a third time during the day is too much. Unless you have to keep working after dinner which makes you need another short session of meditation before sleep, which I still won’t recommend but you can careful explore with this idea if you need, I really can’t think of a reason why you need to meditate a third time. If you really have to try meditating for the third time during the day, be aware that too much meditation can cause you headache. Having said that, I highly recommend you to forget about the idea to meditate more than two times a day.
What Works For Me
What works for me doesn’t mean the same thing would work for you. But I still want to show you because it may be surprising to you that I don’t really meditate that much everyday but it has worked really well for me. For myself, I only meditate for 10 minutes every morning. I don’t even need a second meditation. I feel that the 10 minutes of meditation in the morning has already make my mind clear enough to get me thru the day.