Top 10 Meditation Techniques and Tips for Beginners

Last updated June 17, 2024.
Edited and medically reviewed by Patrick Alban, DC. Written by Deane Alban.

Beginners can find meditation frustrating. These top 10 beginner’s techniques and tips make meditation easier to start and stay with.

Technique 1: Breathing Meditation

Breathing meditation is the most simple, basic form of meditation.

Sit comfortably, close your eyes, and breathe naturally, preferably through your nose.

Focus your attention on your breath, but do not try to change or control it.

(You can also say it out loud, in which case it becomes a “chanting meditation.”)

A traditional mantra is “so, hum.”

Think to yourself “so” as you inhale and “hum” as you exhale.

But you can simply say “in, out” to yourself if you’d prefer.

At first, thoughts will pop into your head constantly.

That’s expected and normal.

The important thing is to not get discouraged; instead, simply notice that your mind has drifted and gently bring yourself back to the present.

Technique 3: Walking Meditation

Movement meditations are great for those who have trouble sitting still.

You may want to consider a moving meditation if you have anxiety since some people find trying to sit still and meditate makes their anxiety worse. 

The simplest moving meditation is a walking meditation which can be done anywhere, anytime.

A walking meditation is not the same thing as simply taking a walk.

The difference is both your attention and your intention.

Walking while listening to an audiobook or talking on the phone definitely doesn’t count as a meditation.

Consciously putting one foot in front of the other while concentrating on the sounds of nature, the feeling of the ground under your feet, and the sensation of the weather on your skin — that’s a walking meditation.

Other excellent movement meditations you may want to look into are yoga, tai chi, and qi gong.

Many everyday activities such as washing dishes, folding laundry, or sweeping the floor can become a moving meditation as long as you are performing it mindfully.

Technique 4: Kirtan Kriya Meditation

Kirtan Kriya is a type of meditation from the Kundalini yoga tradition, but don’t let the mystical-sounding name daunt you.

This meditation is simple and has science to back it up.

During this meditation, sit comfortably and repeat the sounds “sa, ta, na, ma.”

You can say the sounds out loud or to yourself.

Research has confirmed that doing this meditation for 12 minutes per day increases blood flow to two parts of the brain involved in retrieving memories.

It can improve memory in otherwise healthy people and has proved useful even for those with Alzheimer’s.

If you’ve read the bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love (or seen the movie), you may recall that even when the author (Elizabeth Gilbert) was living in an ashram in India, she still found meditation a struggle.

She felt continually pressured that she wasn’t doing it right, making her feel stressed and bad about herself.

If meditating in an ashram is hard, no wonder it can be hard for you while navigating a hectic modern life!

The most common complaints about traditional meditation include feelings of impatience, frustration, and boredom, and not getting the desired results.

This understandably leaves many people, even when convinced of meditation’s many benefits, wondering if they are wasting their time.

If this sounds like you, there’s a different kind of meditation you can try that most beginners find easier and more rewarding. 

In recent years, sound technologies have been created that induce the same brainwave state of consciousness as traditional meditation.

Binaural beats is one widely used technology that is incorporated into meditation programs.

The major advantages of this high-tech approach over traditional meditation are that it is super-easy and results come quickly.

All you need to do is listen to sound files to bring about a meditative brainwave state.

The Top 5 Meditation Tips for Beginners

Now you know the best meditation techniques for beginners, but your success is still not assured.

Another Mindvalley survey found that the two top reasons people quit meditating were lack of time and feeling that it was just too hard. 

Do any of these sound familiar?

Well, here are 5 great beginner’s meditation tips to help you overcome these obstacles.

Tip 1: The Puppy Technique

My all-time favorite beginner’s meditation tip is this analogy from meditation teacher Jack Kornfield, author of Meditation for Beginners.

The essence of this tip is to remind yourself to be kind and patient with yourself when your thoughts wander.

Because they inevitably will.

Tip 2: Make Meditation a Daily Habit

There’s a fundamental, underlying reason people don’t stick with meditation.

They fail to turn their meditation practice into a habit.

As anyone who has tried to quit a bad habit can attest, a habit once formed is easy to stick with and hard to break.

Information captured by the former Lift goal-tracking app found that beginners who meditated daily for 11 days were 90% likely to continue. 

This is why many meditation programs (and other self-improvement programs) are often designed as a 21-day challenge.

Tip 3: Banish Meditation Myths

One persistent myth that keeps people from meditating is that it smacks of New Ageism — it’s too “far out.”

But, in fact, prestigious institutions such as Mayo Clinic, US National Institutes of Health, Harvard Medical School, and Carnegie Mellon University endorse meditation for its many health benefits. 

Many major universities offer free meditations on their websites to help their students deal with stress. 

The US Marines and major corporations, including Google, Aetna, Target, and General Mills, encourage their employees to meditate for peak mental performance. 

Some of the most successful people in the world, including Oprah Winfrey and Richard Branson, attribute their success, in part, to their regular meditation practice.

Elite athletes like Michael Jordan and LeBron James meditate because they are always looking for anything that will give them an edge.

Another limiting myth is that the goal of meditation is to completely clear your mind of thoughts.

When thoughts creep in, many beginners give up in frustration, believing they’ve failed.

But remember, the point of meditation is to learn to notice and monitor your thoughts, not to eliminate them.

That rarely happens even for very accomplished meditators.

Tip 4: Take Advantage of Free Meditation Help

Meditation is simple, but it’s not easy.

Learning to monitor your thoughts may be one of the best things you’ll ever do, but it may also be one of the hardest.

Fortunately, there’s an abundance of beginner’s meditation help available, and much of it is free.

Meditation Classes

If you would like to take meditation classes or practice meditating with others, do an online search for “meditation” and the name of your town or city.

You may be surprised at the variety of places offering meditation classes.

You can access meditations by category.

InsightTimer offers a 7-day meditation course specifically for beginners.

They also have playlists that feature the beginner’s meditation techniques we’ve mentioned above, such as breathing meditations, brainwave entrainment (binaural beats) meditations, kundalini meditations, and mantra meditations.

InsightTimer offers so many meditations of all levels that it truly can be a “one-stop shop” for meditations that will grow with you as you become more accomplished.

Tip 5: Be Clear About Why You Are Meditating

The last tip for staying with meditation is to be very clear about your “big why.”

You may be meditating because you think you “should” or because someone guilted you into it.

But if you really don’t know your underlying reason for meditating, motivation and willpower will eventually let you down.

Here are some food-for-thought questions to ask yourself, along with why meditation may be the answer:

Are you tired of being constantly stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed by negative thinking?

If so, then meditation can quiet your mind, control negative thinking, and reduce stress by lowering levels of the stress hormone cortisol. 

It can make you more resilient to whatever life throws at you. 

Do you have difficulty keeping up at school or on the job because you have trouble learning and can’t stay focused?

Meditation can enhance your ability to learn and improve focus and concentration. 

It actually builds a better brain by building new brain cells and neural connections, while increasing brain plasticity, your brain’s ability to grow and change.

Are you dealing with a mental or physical health challenge?

Over 1,000 published studies support the many health benefits of meditation. 

Meditation can alleviate symptoms and help you better cope with both the physical and psychological aspects of illness.

Once you’ve discovered your reasons for starting a meditation practice, write them down and refer to your notes if you ever get discouraged and feel like giving up.

As Buddhist meditation teacher and bestselling author Sharon Salzberg wisely said, “We don’t meditate to become better at meditation. We meditate to become better at life.”

Perhaps this is the best reason of all to meditate.