How to Meditate Correctly
Learning how to meditate correctly starts with understanding what’s actually happening in your body.
When stress hits, your body floods with hormones that spike your heart rate and blood pressure, preparing you to fight or run.
But when the threat is just an overdue email, that response has nowhere to go.
Meditation does the opposite.
It slows your heart rate, drops your blood pressure, and signals to your body that it’s safe to rest.
The more you practise, the faster your system learns to make that shift on its own.
What Actually Happens When You Meditate
You sit somewhere quiet.
You close your eyes.
You bring your attention to something simple, your breath moving in and out, a word or phrase you repeat quietly, the sensation of your body against the chair.
Not to empty your mind completely, but to give it one thing to focus on instead of everything at once.
The aim isn’t perfection.
It’s just narrowing the spotlight of your awareness until the background chatter fades slightly.
Ten minutes works.
Twenty is better if you can manage it.
But even five minutes creates a shift you can feel.
Learn more about common meditation myths that might be stopping you.
The Biology of Stress (And Why You Can’t Switch Off)
When something threatens you, or even feels threatening, your body reacts instantly.
Your adrenal glands flood your system with stress hormones called norepinephrine and epinephrine.
Your heart rate jumps.
Your breathing quickens.
Blood pressure rises.
Blood rushes to your muscles, preparing you to fight or run.
This response makes sense if you’re facing actual danger.
But when the threat is an overdue deadline or a difficult conversation, your body can’t tell the difference.
It stays activated, ready for a crisis that never quite resolves.
Meditation reverses this.
When you settle into focused attention, your nervous system shifts out of fight-or-flight mode.
Heart rate slows, blood pressure drops, breathing deepens.
Your body finally gets permission to rest.
And the more you practise, the easier it becomes for your system to find that state, not just during meditation, but throughout your day.
What Starts to Shift Over Time
The first few times you meditate, you might notice a temporary sense of calm.
That’s valuable on its own.
But something deeper happens when you keep going.
Research shows that people who meditate regularly don’t just feel less stressed in the moment, they respond differently to stress when it arrives.
Their nervous systems recover faster.
They bounce back from difficult situations with less residual tension.
Studies tracking regular practitioners found these resilience improvements lasted months, suggesting meditation rewires how you process stress rather than just masking it temporarily.
There’s also the mental side.
When you sit with your thoughts without immediately reacting to them, you start noticing patterns.
The same worries cycling through.
The way your mind catastrophises or jumps to conclusions.
Meditation doesn’t erase those patterns, but it creates space between you and them.
That gap, even a small one, makes it easier to choose a different response.
Before You Start (The Things Nobody Mentions)
It Won’t Feel Natural at First
If you want to learn how to meditate correctly, start by simply sitting down to meditate.
Your mind will race.
You’ll wonder if you’re doing it right.
When I first started, I spent most sessions thinking about what I’d forgotten to add to my shopping list.
None of that matters yet.
Just sit.
The familiarity comes from repetition, not from getting everything perfect on day one.
Short and Regular Beats Long and Sporadic
You don’t need to meditate for an hour.
Consistency matters far more than duration.
Ten minutes every day will change your stress response more than an hour once a week.
Start small.
Build the habit.
Let it become something you return to, not something you dread.
Your Mind Will Wander (And That’s the Practice)
You’ll sit down.
You’ll focus on your breath.
Within thirty seconds, you’ll be thinking about work, or dinner, or something you said five years ago that still makes you cringe.
This isn’t failure.
This is the practice.
The moment you notice your mind has wandered, that’s awareness.
The moment you bring it back, that’s training.
Even people who’ve meditated for decades still experience this.
The difference is they don’t judge it.
Neither should you.
Discover more about stopping your racing mind.
Where to Begin
Start when you’re not already drowning in stress.
Don’t wait until you’re overwhelmed to learn how to steady yourself.
Pick a meditation style that feels manageable, there are dozens, and just begin.
You’ll discover what works through doing it, not by researching it endlessly.
And when you inevitably drift, lose focus, or skip days, remember: you’re not trying to master meditation.
You’re learning to return to yourself.
That’s the practice.
That’s the point.
If you’re caught in thought loops and racing minds, this is where you start learning how to meditate correctly, and how to come home to yourself.
Read more about my meditation journey.
Ready to learn about the patterns keeping you stuck?
Download “The Loop Breaker Guide: 15 Mental Patterns That Keep You Stuck (And How to Break Them)” and discover the specific steps to recognise and step outside each pattern.
This isn’t about positive thinking or forcing yourself to change. It’s about seeing clearly what’s actually running your mind. And once you see it, everything changes.