Meditation has a myriad of benefits, and has become a very mainstream method of self-help and self-development. Research has shown that meditation can also help support the treatment of conditions like PTSD1 and can have significant benefits for reducing stress and anxiety.2 But how often to meditate is a common question for the uninitiated, and it’s a deceptively difficult one to answer.
We asked three experts about their own meditation practices, how they integrate it into their work in the healthcare field, and how they came to understand its benefits.
Their general consensus on how often to meditate to see the benefits? It depends, but daily is your best bet.
Choosing How Often You Meditate
Dr. Monique Gary, DO, medical director of the cancer program at Grand View Health, is an oncologist who used meditation as a tool to help support her patients through their treatments. She says that she recommends people focus on a regular meditation practice so that they can feel the benefits.
“I think in order for it to be a sustainable practice, and one where you can sort of reap the benefit overall as opposed to the transactional benefit of feeling more peaceful, you really need to try to do it three to five times a week, at least,” she says.
Gary also founded a holistic retreat called Still Rise Farms. In doing this work, Gary uses a number of practices that include meditation. She says that finding a meditation practice that will work for you—whether that’s a guided meditation, a mantra meditation, or another form—requires a certain willingness to let go of your preconceived notions.
you have to give yourself some grace and be able to laugh at yourself to try some things that maybe don’t work so well.
For her, that low stakes failure came in the form of a very popular meditation app, which she says heightened her anxiety rather than lowering it. When she’s answering questions about meditation from her patients, her advice is to customize it to fit you and your situation.
“If you personalize it then I think that that helps you and makes sure that your needs are addressed,” she says. “And you feel like an active participant in it, as opposed to a passive person who’s being talked at.”
In other words, more isn’t always better, different isn’t always better, what works for you is what is best.
What Are Your Goals?
Dr. Tom Ingegno, DAMC has meditated daily for decades, and uses it as part of his professional life as an acupuncturist.
“If somebody’s coming in and maybe they’ve had a rough week of work, or they got some bad health news, or, [the] loss of a loved one or something like that—we can’t take that away,” he says, “but while they’re in the treatment, we try and create that space. Having them do some breath work or guided meditation, even, can help.”
As for how often Ingegno meditates. he says that he does so daily and that a digital tool known as a Muse headband helps him sustain it.
I’m now over five years of daily meditation and I don’t want that number to go to zero…I just don’t want to lose that number. So, I will meditate. Even if it’s going to be a crap meditation, even if it’s only going to be for like two minutes. I’m making sure I do that every morning.
The length of time you’re supposed to meditate at any one time in order to feel those benefits is also a point of contention. Previous research has found that between 5 and 45 minutes is often the best window and that meditating just before bed can help for those looking to reduce insomnia.
In order to reach those goals, Ingegno isn’t alone in using technology. Dr. Geillan Aly (PhD), the founder and CEO at Compassionate Math who also works within the CUNY ecosystem, has used the muse headband to study levels of math-related anxiety in students.
In her study, a group of students were given the muse headband and tasked with meditating for a short period of time. What happened? The group’s math anxiety scores lowered as compared to a control group. As for the study’s impact on her own personal outlook, Aly says that it has given her even more of a reason to trust in meditation as a support for students, who are probably not the first group you’d think of as regular meditators.
“Rather than just, ‘When I meditate, I feel good. When I meditate, I can be calmer,’ It’s seeing a very fundamental, practical application to meditation, which I think is very helpful for people who think that meditation is so woo woo.”
Essentially, choosing a daily meditation practice means building skills that can quickly help you deal with any situation. A situational meditation practice is good too, but you may miss out on some of the benefits of meditating when things are actually going well.
How to Find the Best Meditation Practice for You
Ask three experts in their respective fields about meditation, and how they do it, and you will get three different answers. For Dr. Gary, what her best practice looks like depends on the time of day and her workload, but her weekends provide the most space for meditation.
“It’s a completely oversized bean bag chair that I like to sit on. And I’ll sit right in the center of it and I’ll really just focus on my breathing. And I start by remembering to take deep breaths because I find that even during the day, during the week, I don’t breathe enough.”
Depending on what’s at the front of your mind, the way you meditate can change. If you’re working on a big project, a guided visualization might help, whereas as a breathing routine may be more helpful if you’re struggling with anxiety.
“[People] tend to think that you’ve got to find just the perfect pose, and the perfect mantra, and you’ve got to do your ohms and all these things. And that isn’t necessarily the case to see the benefit.”
As someone working in what is historically a form of Eastern medicine, a tradition that is often discredited by Western medical practitioners, Dr. Ingegno says that the influx of interest in tools like meditation shows that healthcare can be democratized when people find a practice that works for them. But only if resources, like those available on YouTube and other free platforms, aren’t drowned out by big money biohacker types.
And, just like with any health practice, the way you enter into something like a meditation practice can differ radically between people. Maybe it has been recommended by a therapist, for example, or maybe you are just looking for something new to help you deal with daily stressors. It’s one of the most accessible and flexible self-help methods out there.
Keep in Mind
The most important thing is finding a meditation practice that works for you, but experts agree that once a day is probably an ideal target to consistently feel the impacts of the practice.
However, more important than that is finding a routine that you can do consistently, and that is accessible to you. That may mean just a few times a week, only when you need it, or even more than once a day. The great thing about meditation is that it’s very easy for you to control where, when, and how often you do it.