A lot of people feel like they don’t have time to meditate.
There is work, family, children, and all the other things that fill up a normal day. Some people may even feel like they can’t find ten minutes to sit down and practice.
First, I have to admit that I’m a little skeptical. Most of us can somehow find ten minutes to scroll through our phones. If you have ten minutes for that, you probably have ten minutes for meditation too.
But let’s assume you genuinely don’t. Maybe this is a particularly busy period of your life, and finding even ten uninterrupted minutes is difficult.
In Unified Mindfulness, there are two approaches that can be especially useful: micro-hits and background practice. I’ve been experimenting with a particular way of combining these recently, and I find it very practical.
A Meditation Can Be Much Shorter Than You Think
A micro-hit is exactly what it sounds like: a very short period of meditation.
In Unified Mindfulness, any practice period shorter than ten minutes can be considered a micro-hit. It could be five minutes, one minute, thirty seconds, or even ten seconds.
I think this concept is helpful because it removes some of the psychological pressure around meditation. You don’t always have to think, Now I need to find twenty or thirty minutes, sit down properly, and meditate.
You can simply practice whenever a small opening appears.
Maybe you have two minutes while waiting for something. Maybe you take a short break from work. Maybe you get up to get some water. If you find five opportunities during the day to practice for two minutes, you’ve already accumulated ten minutes.
And there is one particular micro-hit I’ve been enjoying recently.
Try Moving Between the Local and the Whole Body
Most of us spend an enormous amount of time with our attention in our heads. We’re thinking, planning, remembering, worrying, imagining, and rehearsing conversations.
The body gives us another place to put attention.
Some bodily sensations are relatively neutral: the feeling of clothing touching your skin, your feet contacting the floor, or the movement of breathing. These neutral sensations can be very helpful because they bring attention back into immediate sensory experience.
But the body also contains emotional sensations. When we’re stressed, perhaps there is tightness in the face, pressure in the throat, contraction in the chest, or discomfort in the stomach.
So here’s the practice.
Suppose you’re working and notice that you’re feeling stressed. Stop for a minute or two. You can close your eyes if appropriate, but you don’t have to.
First, find where the emotional reaction is most obvious in your body. Maybe there is a tight feeling in your chest. Give that area your attention for about five seconds, or perhaps three breaths. If labeling helps you stay focused, you can mentally say:
Local.
Then expand attention to include the whole body.
Notice your head, shoulders, chest, abdomen, legs, and feet. If sensing the whole body at once is difficult, move through these areas first and then gradually allow them to form one larger field of bodily sensation.
Stay there for another few seconds and mentally label:
Global.
Then return to the emotional area.
Local.
And expand again.
Global.
Local. Global. Local. Global.
Your attention is repeatedly zooming in and zooming out.
Why Zooming Out Can Help
What I like about this practice is that when you’re stressed, the unpleasant sensation can easily dominate your entire experience.
If there is a strong contraction in your chest and all your attention is concentrated there, it can feel like your whole body is tense. But usually that isn’t actually true.
When you expand attention, you may discover that your chest is tight while your legs feel neutral. Your hands may be relatively relaxed. Perhaps there are subtle pleasant sensations somewhere else in the body.
The difficult sensation is now being experienced within a much larger field.
You can also allow some of the neutral or relaxed parts of the body to relax even more. In a sense, those parts of the body are showing the tense area that relaxation is possible.
Sometimes I’ve noticed something else interesting. After moving between local and global attention several times, the tight sensation begins to spread out. Its boundaries become less defined. As it occupies a larger area, its intensity may decrease.
You don’t have to force that to happen. The goal isn’t to make the unpleasant sensation disappear. You’re simply observing what happens when you alternate between experiencing it locally and experiencing it as one part of the whole body.
And the entire exercise can take only a minute or two.
That’s a micro-hit.
Keeping a Little Mindfulness in the Background
Once you become comfortable sensing the whole body, you can take the practice one step further.
This brings us to background practice.
Instead of giving meditation 100 percent of your attention, you might keep perhaps 10 or 20 percent of your attention on bodily sensations while doing something else.
Suppose you’re washing dishes. Most of your attention remains with washing the dishes, but somewhere in the background you maintain a light awareness of the whole body.
Or imagine you’re having a conversation with someone.
Normally, even when we’re listening, quite a lot of our attention may actually be inside our heads. We’re thinking, What am I going to say when this person finishes? Did what I just said sound stupid? What does this person think about me?
We may be physically present in the conversation while mentally preparing for the next thirty seconds.
Instead, try keeping a small percentage of attention on the body. Feel your feet, your hands, your breathing, or simply the whole field of bodily sensation while continuing to listen.
You may find yourself more present.
You may also notice your emotional reactions earlier because you’re actually aware of what is happening in your body. And when it’s your turn to speak, sometimes the words simply come out naturally. You don’t need to prepare every sentence in your head beforehand.
The body becomes a kind of anchor to the present moment.
Practice Doesn’t Always Need Its Own Time Slot
Background practice doesn’t have to involve the whole body either. You could keep a little attention on breathing while working. You could maintain a light awareness of physical sensations while walking. There are many possibilities.
The basic idea is that mindfulness doesn’t always have to be a separate activity.
Formal meditation is valuable, and if you can find twenty or thirty minutes to sit, that’s great. But I also think it’s important not to create an unnecessary barrier where meditation only counts if you sit down, close your eyes, and practice for a certain amount of time.
Ten seconds of genuine awareness is still ten seconds of practice. A one-minute micro-hit is still practice. And maintaining a little awareness in the background while living your ordinary life is also practice.
In fact, these small periods can accumulate. More importantly, they can gradually change the relationship between meditation and the rest of your life. Instead of mindfulness being something you occasionally do, it starts becoming something that accompanies you.
So if you really don’t have ten minutes today, that’s okay. Find one minute, or thirty seconds. Notice where stress is showing up in your body. Go local. Expand to global. Go local again. Or simply keep 10 percent of your attention with your body while you continue with your day.
You may have much more time to practice than you thought.
I appreciate you taking the time to read this.
If you’re interested in exploring how mindfulness can support daily life, not just on the cushion, but in ordinary moments, I’d be happy to have you here.
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And, If You’d Like Some Personal Support With Your Mindfulness Practice…
I offer 1:1 mindfulness coaching as a certified Unified Mindfulness teacher/trainer.
The coaching can help you deepen your practice, correct misunderstandings, or better understand how mindfulness works. We will also design ways to bring the practice into your actual daily life, not just your meditation sessions.
If you’re interested, feel free to book a connection call. We can talk about your goals, your current practice, and how mindfulness training might help. We can also see whether working together would be a good fit.
You can send me a DM or email me at miaosimuse@qq.com, and I’ll send you my availability for a call.