Meditation is a tool that can be used to improve mindfulness and increase wellbeing, and to cope with stress more effectively. While you may not think you have the time, the truth is that you don’t need to spend hours meditating to experience its benefits. The key is to practice consistently, even if it’s just 20 minutes a day.

Here are some options for fitting it into your day-to-day.

• Start of your day – take 20 minutes at the beginning of the day when you first awaken.
• Lunch time – set aside 20 minutes at lunch time.
• Before bed – get into bed, ready for sleep and listen to a 20 minute sleep meditation.

There are many benefits when doing this consistently, including: 

• gaining a new perspective on stressful situations
• building skills to manage your stress
• increasing self-awareness
• focusing on the present
• reducing negative emotions
• increasing patience and tolerance
• lowering resting heart rate and blood pressure
• improving sleep quality.

Set yourself a goal of trialling one of the above options just once a day over the next week and see whether you notice any differences in how you are feeling.