As the day progresses and your brain starts to tire, mindfulness can help you stay sharp and avoid poor decisions. After lunch, set a timer on your phone to ring every hour.

The body is a wonderful touchstone for meditation. Use it to help guide your attention inward and to train it to notice what’s right happening in the moment.

If you find yourself ruminating about something that happened, tell yourself: “remembering.” You can come up with your own labels, but the point is to simply acknowledge what’s coming up, give it a nod, and then let it go without engaging any further.

As the authors note, this doesn’t mean meditation can’t help teenagers—it could well be the case that we need to develop and test interventions aimed at younger people. The upshot? Meditation is generally good for your well-being, yes, but so far it doesn’t appear to be actually better than many other steps you can take to stay healthy and happy. It should definitely be considered an adjunct to, not a replacement for, other kinds of treatment for mental conditions like bipolar disorder.

The best way to to set ourselves up to keep meditating is knowing our intention. Why do we want to meditate? Being clear about what we want to get out of our practice — whether it’s to feel happier, feel calmer, be more focused, or be less stressed — will be a big help in creating the right attitude going into it.

Still, it’s encouraging to know that something that can be taught and practiced can have an impact on our overall health—not just mental but also physical—more than 2,000 years after it was developed. That’s reason enough to give mindfulness meditation a try.

Meditating after a large meal—and certainly after drinking alcohol—can make you feel sleepy, which isn’t ideal. The goal is to stay alert during your practice.

Meditation has proven benefits, but the style that works best depends on a person's habits and preferences. In this episode of The Science of Happiness, we explore walking meditation, a powerful practice for feeling more centered and grounded. Dan Harris, host of the award-winning 10% Happier podcast, shares how walking meditation helps him manage the residual stress and anxiety from years of war reporting and high-pressure TV anchoring.

It’s tempting to lie down to meditate, especially if you’re doing it before bed or right when you wake up. Ideally, though, you want to be in an upright seated position, to avoid any urge to fall asleep.

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But meditation is more like sleep. The harder we try to sleep, sometimes the harder it is to drift off. When we sit to meditate, if we try hard to empty the mind, it tends to feel full.

It’s often said that meditation may be simple, but it isn’t easy. And this makes sense. It’s not part of our normal routine to sit quietly, without any distraction, and just… breathe.

Meditation doesn’t require much. But it’s easiest to get started knowing these meditation basics:

And for what? Meditation is about befriending yourself. Treat thoughts and other distractions with a friendly curiosity, as you might a passerby in the neighborhood. Maybe give ‘em a wave as they walk by, and then get back to your practice.