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But people can learn mindfulness on their own. Simply learning to focus your attention on your breathing in the present moment is a big part of mindfulness. At a new website we’ve created, called Greater Good in Action, we offer several step-by-step guides to mindfulness practices.

Ultimately, meditation is something you can do anywhere and at any time, so getting comfortable meditating without guidance can be useful.

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A mantra, or a word or phrase that you repeat to yourself silently, can be used as an anchor for your awareness during meditation. In some practices, a mantra is given to you by a teacher. You can also use your own.

Continue like this for two minutes. Noticing the breath moving into your body on the inhale, and leaving your body on the exhale.

A 2015 study looked at people who score high on a mindfulness awareness test, and found that they had a healthier cardiovascular risk profile than people with lower scores. One small pilot program also found that mindfulness training helped decrease depression.

Then, they were given the Stroop test—a test that measures attention and emotional control—while having their brains monitored by electroencephalography. Those undergoing breath training had significantly better attention on the Stroop test and more activation in an area of the brain associated with attention than those in the active control group.

While you often hear about “clearing your mind” through meditation, the truth is you can’t really clear or empty your mind. Thinking is what these big ol’ brains of ours do! And stopping thinking isn’t the goal of meditation, anyway—not getting caught up in those thoughts is.

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.

Meditation does have an impact on physical health—but it’s modest. Many claims have been made about mindfulness and physical health, but sometimes these claims are hard to substantiate or may be mixed up with other effects. That said, there is some good evidence that meditation affects physiological indices of health. We’ve already mentioned that long-term meditation seems to buffer people from the inflammatory response to stress. In addition, meditators seem to have increased activity of telomerase, an enzyme implicated in longer cell life and, therefore, longevity. But there’s a catch. “The differences found [between meditators and non-meditators] harmony could be due to factors like education or exercise, each of which has its own buffering effect on brains,” write Goleman and Davidson in

Meditation creates the conditions for us to see things more clearly, feel calmer and content, and be kind to ourselves and others no matter what’s happening in our lives.

Loving-kindness meditation, which the GGSC’s Christine Carter explains in this post, involves extending feelings of compassion toward people, starting with yourself then branching out to someone close to you, then to an acquaintance, then to someone giving you a hard time, then finally to all beings everywhere.

Awareness gave them more choice in how to respond, instead of becoming swept up in escalating negative emotion.

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.