Everyday Mindfulness: 3 Techniques To Start Your Practice

We all know that mindfulness and meditation is good for us, but probably the biggest question that people have about meditation is: how do you actually do it?! Well, it’s a big question, with many possible answers, but in this article I’ll tell you about three different approaches you could take to get started on your mindfulness journey.

Mindfulness isn’t really something you “do”, it’s a specific kind of awareness that you can cultivate. You don’t necessarily have to do a sitting meditation in order to be mindful, and nor do you have to be sitting at all! You can do it anywhere, any time, no matter who you are. If you’re new to mindfulness, give these a try and see how you feel; some people prefer particular methods over others, and other people like to bounce between different methods and keep their mindfulness practice varied. Remember - your mindfulness practice is unique to you. There’s no doing it right or doing it wrong, there is only doing it!

Regardless of which technique you choose, your mind will always wander. That’s what it does. Mindfulness is simply about noticing when your mind gets away from you, and bringing it back. If it wanders twice, bring it back twice; you are still being mindful. If it wanders a thousand times, bring it back a thousand times; you are still being mindful. One more time, I repeat: your mind will wander.

You cannot fail at meditation.

And one more note before you get started - don’t feel like you need to try meditating for a long time, or for an undefined amount of time. You can start at 1 minute, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, anything that works for you. Feel free to use a timer if that helps. You could just use your phone timer if that’s easiest. Personally I like the Insight Timer app because it has very pleasant bell tones to ease you into and out of your allotted time.


1. Sitting Meditation

The classic. This is probably what you think of when you imagine someone meditating.

  • Take your seat. As long as you’re relatively comfortable and reasonably alert, you can sit anywhere and in any position.

  • Bring your awareness to your physical body. Notice the urges to fidget. It’s natural to want to keep fidgeting, but unless you feel actual pain, let yourself notice any discomfort you feel. Notice any itches you feel. Notice if it feels like you’re holding tension somewhere.

  • Notice your judgments. Are you judging your sensations in manners such as “my shoulders are tense, probably because I had to work late yesterday and I was hunching over the computer”, or “my back hurts because I had a terrible night of sleep”. Let go of those judgements. For this moment, it doesn’t matter why your sensations are, it just matters if they are.

  • Become aware of how you are labelling your sensations. Are you labelling things you feel as “pain” or “tension” or “itch”? See if you can let go of calling it that and just take a look at the sensation.

  • Bring your awareness to your breath, without trying to control it in any way. Just notice it, coming in and out, all by itself.

  • Keep your awareness on your breath. There are four parts to the breath: the inhale, the “peak” retention of the inhalation, the exhale, and the “valley”, the space where the exhale has occurred and there is a moment of relaxation before the next inhale. The peak and the valley are typically shorter than the inhale and the exhale. Notice the four parts of the breath.

  • Notice when your mind wanders. Your mind will wander! It’s normal and natural. The act of mindfulness isn’t about having a blank mind, because a blank mind is impossible for a living human. Simply notice that your mind has wandered, and bring your attention back to your breath, with no judgments. Judgments here would include “my mind wandered, therefore I have failed at meditating” or “my mind wandered, therefore I’ll never find peace”, “I can’t focus on my breath, therefore mindfulness isn’t right for me”. 

Tip: Try this on your public transport commute. Just take a few moments to expand your awareness to notice the things you hear, feel, and smell. Then bring your awareness inward. Can you notice your breath even while the hustle and bustle of life happens around you? Can you resist the urge to distract yourself with your phone for a few minutes, and just sit with the sensation of being?

2. Mindful Observation

 If you’re more of a tactile person and the thought of sitting quietly with your eyes closed makes you want to cry with boredom, you’re not alone. Objects have been used in traditional types of meditation for a long time, for example observing a candle, or saying a prayer or mantra with each bead on a string. In the spirit of making these tips as accessible as possible, though, my suggestion for this is to choose a really mundane object and use that as your focus. For example: an apple, a pencil, a mug, a remote control (as long as the TV is off). Don’t use anything you might be tempted to interact with intellectually, like your phone or a book. Choose an item that is passive, that you don’t often spend much time looking at.

  • When you’ve chosen your object, set it down on a surface in front of you. For the purposes here, I’ll use an apple as an example.

  • Let your awareness come to the apple. Ignore the fact that it is “an apple” and simply observe the fact that “it is”.

  • Notice other thoughts that come into your mind. Your mind will wander, it will want you to stop looking at the apple. Just come back to the apple.

  • Avoid making lists of attributes. Your instinct might be to describe the apple, mentally thinking “round, red, shiny, smooth”. Your mind might also take you to descriptions like “juicy, sweet”. But remember that these are judgments. The apple might be juicy and sweet, but in this moment, you are not tasting it. You cannot observe the fact that it is juicy and sweet. Allow yourself to let go of those judgements. You’re simply looking at it. Allow yourself to let go of the things you cannot know, they are distractions and they are keeping you from fully observing this moment.

  • Take the apple into your hands. If you’d like to, you can close your eyes and let your hands do the observing from here. If you’d prefer to keep your eyes open, that’s fine too. There is no right or wrong.

  • Touch the apple, rotate it in your hands, run your fingertips over its surfaces and its textures. Notice your natural desire to label descriptions of what you feel. Your instinct may be to make mental notes like “this part is rough”, “this part is smooth”. Notice when those descriptions come up in your mind and then see if you can let them go. Imagine you don’t know what “rough” or “smooth” mean, and simply experience the physical sensation.

Tip: take a mindful time-out at your desk by doing this for a few minutes with any mundane object you might have.

3. The Cloud Method.

Some people don’t like visualisation techniques, but I find they can be helpful, especially if you find the idea of meditation too abstract. This is a visual adaptation of the classic mindful awareness technique as described in the Sitting Meditation section above.

  • It is recommended to do this sitting down, somewhere you can be comfortable but alert.

  • Bring your attention to your posture, and notice if you’re holding any tension or have any discomfort. Unless you’re in pain, see if you can sit with the discomfort, and simply observe it.

  • After a few moments of observing your posture, move your awareness to your breath as it flows in and out. You don’t need to change your natural breath pattern, just notice however it moves on every inhale and exhale. Notice how your body expands and releases with each breath.

  • If your eyes are still open, let them close, and imagine a clear blue sky.

  • You have some flexibility in where the visualisation goes from here: if you like being outside in warm weather, imagine yourself outside, bathing in the warm sunlight. If you’re more a fan of colder weather, you could imagine yourself enjoying a crisp breeze. Maybe you’d prefer to be inside but looking out a window. You’re in charge of the setting here, and you control the thermostat, so you can choose your own parameters.

  • Bring your awareness to your sky.

  • Simply gaze into the blue, without any judgement.

  • Your mind will start to wander. This is totally normal and a natural part of the mindfulness process.

  • When you notice your mind wandering, put a cloud in your sky. If it’s just a little thought, maybe something like “what will I have for lunch?” You could make it a fluffy little cloud. But let it float into your sky, and look at it. Acknowledge that the cloud arose. And then on your next exhale, blow it gently out of your sky. You could even do the cloud-moving exhale through your mouth if you’d like. If a scary or negative thought comes into your head, maybe consider that a big grey rainy cloud. Let it be there, for a moment. Acknowledge it. See it. The thought is a part of your mind and it arose for a reason. But you don’t need it right now, so it’s time to let it fly away. Take your inhale, and then exhale it out of your sky.

  • Remember that your sky will never be fully cloud-free. Clouds come and go. But this particular sky is yours, and you choose when to blow the clouds away.

Tip: Many people enjoy a visualisation-based meditation because they find it more tangible technique to grasp. You could give this a try when you’re feeling overwhelmed by your thoughts. If you’re overwhelmed, you could even use it as a way of breaking down your thoughts into more approachable “clouds”. Visualise your sky, and then notice the thoughts when they come up. Let the cloud linger in your sky a moment and just sit with it. Then when you’re ready to move it, blow it away and see which one comes up next.