Just breathe.

Take a moment now to pay attention to your breath, feel each inhale and each exhale move in and out of your lungs at its own pace. There is no urgency, no sense of controlling the natural rhythm of the breath. It just is. Allow yourself to become a witness watching the breath flow in and out. Perhaps if you close your eyes, the voice in your head will become adaptive to each inhale and each exhale.

Maybe if you bring enough of your focus inward, you will begin to feel your own pulse. All the stresses of the day are melting away as you fixate your attention on the natural-flowing movements happening inside. Witnessing, watching what’s happening.

This is meditation.

Meditation is not sitting like a pretzel with no thoughts, no voice inside the head. It is training the mind to witness and observe the thoughts, instead of allowing the thoughts to control how we react and what we do. We use the breath as an anchor to get there. Sure, sometimes those annoying “I need to call so-and-so today” thoughts pop up in the middle of meditating, but when they do, gently nudging the attention back toward the breath is all it takes.

After practicing this a few times, it gets easier.

Meditation is not attempting to eliminate all thoughts to have blankness in the mind. Thoughts are like clouds — there’s no beginning and no end. They are always there.

Meditation results in more mindfulness, or being more aware of your own experience with a less judgmental tone. We learn how to observe the thoughts, the emotions, the surroundings instead of reacting to all of these things off-the-bat. Learning how to mindfully respond to situations, instead of reacting instantly, is beneficial all-around. For example, we begin to think before we speak, resulting in improved relationships.

We learn that perhaps the things that angered us so quickly in the past don’t actually matter at all. We notice smaller things in our environment, learning a new appreciation for the things that surround us.

All it takes to get started is about five minutes, a quiet room and the willingness to bring the attention to the breath. What are you waiting for?