7 Easy Meditation Techniques for Absolute Beginners

Meditation is a broad term. And there are a lot of different techniques or practices. For beginners, it might seem complicated. Where do I even start? Well, here! Learn about the best easy meditation techniques for newbies!

First Things First – Why Should I Start Meditation?

Have you ever felt overwhelmed with your studies, work, or personal life? Maybe you cannot stop intrusive thoughts? Or have a problem with concentration? I’ve been there as well. Tending to your hobbies might help, but often it worsens the situation.

Because we, as humans, often blame ourselves for enjoying life instead of working, acquiring new skills and other ‘important stuff.’

That’s where meditation comes in. It has many definitions, but to put it simply: it’s a practice to train attention, mindfulness and awareness. When you read it for the first time, it sounds strange, but don’t worry.

For now, think about it as an exercise to check what you are actually feeling. Are you stressed? Tense? Maybe you feel like lying down or the exact opposite – running away?

Meditation is a great tool to learn more about yourself, your desires, feelings, body needs and thoughts. It helps you identify what should be your next move, or maybe whether you need a rest right now. As with everything, you will need some time to master it.

But there is no better day to start than today!

Of course, you can find hundreds of different meditative practices. And that is overwhelming as well. That’s why I’ve listed 7 techniques for beginners that you can use even right after finishing reading this post!

Number 1: Mindful Breathing

Mindful Breathing is one of the easiest forms of meditations. It revolves around focusing on your inhale and exhale. Your first time might look like this:

1. Sit in a comfortable position and close your eyes.
2. Focus your attention on breathing.
   1. Is it shallow? Is it deep?
   2. Try to breathe slower and deeper than you normally do.
3. Whenever you lose focus, don’t be nervous. Just exhale slowly and focus back on breathing.

You will notice that after some time your mind is wandering. That’s perfectly normal. Remember: you are just getting started, and you can’t become a mystic within one day. When you realize that you are overthinking and forgot about the goal of meditation, just return to it gently.

Don’t be too hard on yourself!

Number 2: Body Scan Meditation

This practice focuses on your body, or rather – what you feel in your body. It’s a great way to discover what you are actually feeling in the present moment. You can think of it as a mental X-ray that scans your body and tells you what is going on.

Your first time might look like this:

1. Get into a comfortable position.
2. Close your eyes and focus on your breath.
3. Find a place (mentally!) that feels best to work with right now.
   1. Maybe you are sore after your back workout?
   2. Or your legs are tired after a whole day of walking?
4. Pay attention to what you are actually feeling. Is it pain, tension, tickling, pressure?
5. After you identified the feeling, go to the next part. That might be the closest part of your body (e.g. you start with hands and proceed with forearms) or wherever you feel like it.
6. Start with 1–2 minutes for each body part and 5–10 minutes as a whole process.

Important thing to note: with sensations might come feelings, which can be hard to grasp at the beginning. For example: you can feel some anger after realizing that your chest is tense. Don’t worry about that – it’s absolutely normal.

With time, you will learn how tensions and your emotions are connected with each other.

Number 3: Guided Visualization

Guided visualization is a mindfulness practice that is quite easy to start. It usually involves playing some audio (from YouTube, Spotify, TikTok etc.) that you listen to while relaxing. They can also be performed live under spiritual guru/mentor.

Most of the recordings do not require you to be active. Rather, they make you follow them and visualize your surroundings, situations and feelings.

For example: the mentor might ask you to visualize that right there, right now, you are sitting on a calm, sandy beach.

You can hear gentle waves and seagulls, sun rays are warming up and relaxing your whole body. You taste a salt on your lips, and with every inhale and exhale, you are sinking deeper into the warm, cozy sand…

Guided visualization is a great way to start. Just remember not to rely on them too much. After all, meditation should be a tool that you can always use. Without relying on external sources.

Number 4: Mantra Meditation

Mantra meditation is what we often have in mind while we think about Buddhist monks or “exotic” mystics. To put it simply: mantra is a syllable, word, group of words or phonemes. Many people believe they hold special powers.

However, that doesn’t mean you have to believe in astral beings to profit from mantra meditation. You can treat a mantra as an affirmation. Choose a topic that you think needs improvement in your life.

For example: let’s go with self-confidence. Sit down cross-legged, close your eyes, slow down your breath and say to yourself:

• I am beautiful;
• I am confident;
• I am smart;
• I go through life with courage.

You can write those affirmations beforehand or just say them when they appear in your mind. There is a high chance you might be ashamed to say them aloud. That’s normal, don’t stress out!

Just read them in your thoughts and once you get comfortable – start talking aloud.

Number 5: Walking Meditation

There are different types of walking meditations. Walking is a habituated action that we often don’t think about. For example: do you pay attention when going back home from work? Or when you go out grocery shopping?

Many times we do that on autopilot. That is an evolutionary adaptation to save up energy and just don’t think about our route every time. 

However, it is sometimes good to pay attention to your surroundings during daily actions. That’s what walking meditation is about. It’s not about closing eyes and trying to get to your destination blindly (and most probably – failing). It’s about mindfully being in the present.

One of the easiest beginner routine look like this:

1. Go to your nearby favorite park, forest, lake etc.
2. Check your body: is it light? Is it heavy? Do you feel relaxed, or tense?
3. As you walk, pay attention to your surroundings. Maybe something small changed that you didn’t notice earlier?
4. Focus on the present moment. Don’t think about tomorrow’s dinner or weekend laundry.
5. Whenever you drift away mentally, just notice that and focus back. The easiest way to get back is to focus on something that catches your attention in your surroundings.

Number 6: Gratitude Meditation

Gratitude practices are a great way to find pleasure in every day. You will benefit A LOT from them if you struggle with finding joy in daily life. They also teach you the right kind of gratitude towards yourself, and humility.

There are two approaches to gratitude meditation.

First: you should sit down and note in a special notebook everything you are grateful for that happened during the day. In the beginning, it might be hard, so I suggest starting with 3 things that come to your mind.

After that, close your eyes and focus on thinking about those things. If something more comes up – that’s great! Note it down as well. If not – don’t worry. You will learn it later on.

Second approach: you start with silencing your mind, calming down breath and with closed eyes thinking about your day. Then you ‘catch’ everything that you are grateful for. Once you do find something, open your eyes, note it down and go back to meditation.

In the end, combining two approaches, you end up with a notebook full of gratitude. And, as always, you can experiment with them. For example: start with writing down just one thing and find the other two while meditating.

Number 7: Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Many people don’t recognize progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) as a meditation technique. For me – it is a form of mindfulness practice, for sure. Sometimes I use meditation as a way to relax, not necessarily to focus on gratitude, life joy or similar things.

Thus, why I consider PMR as a form of meditation. It’s up to you to decide how you treat it.

No matter what you call it, PMR is a tool to relax muscles. At first sight it might resemble body scan meditation, however there are some key differences. You can start PMR by following the steps below:

1. Lie down in a comfortable position.
2. Close your eyes and slow down your breath – take 5–10 deep breaths.
3. Find a place in your body that is tense (preferably: peripheral part of the body, like hands or feet).
4. Take a deep breath and squeeze targeted muscle groups for 5–10 seconds.
   1. Start with smaller parts. E.g.: just hand, not entire arm.
   2. Try to squeeze only the targeted muscle group. E.g.: just one foot, without a calf.
5. Feel the tension for 5–10 seconds.
6. Breathe out and relax.
7. Focus on relaxing tensed muscles for 15–20 seconds.
8. Move on to the next group (preferably: the closest one to the previous).
9. Once you feel relaxed (or tired) open your eyes and slowly stand up.

In the beginning you might encounter some problems. Maybe you can’t squeeze just your hands, and you feel some tension in your forearms as well. Or you need more than 20 seconds to relax.

That’s perfectly fine. Treat it as training, and remember: start slowly and work on it regularly.

Conclusion: Embracing Meditation as a Beginner

Meditation is a great way to relieve stress and anxieties after a whole day of hard work. Though you can find it hard to start, remember to treat it like you would treat a new training or hobby. You can’t become a powerlifter after just one training session. And you can’t become a transcendental mystic in one meditation.

Treat it with joy, curiosity and remember to have fun. Even if it is sometimes hard, just try every day and with time, meditation will be your everyday habit! And if you don’t know where to start, you can check my guide on meditation for beginners HERE.