What are advantages of doing meditation for 1 hour daily ?

What are advantages of doing meditation for 1 hour daily ? While I agree completely with the importance of slowly building up the practice so that a person doesn’t quit, I have seen the advantages of meditating 1 hour plus and now 2+ hours per day: When you begin meditating, thoughts keep coming into consciousness with such rapidity that there is little time to actually be observing the breath. During the first few minutes of a meditation the mind is busier than later in the meditation. The longer one sits the more the mind settles and less thoughts intrude on the attention to the breath. The mind settles, the breath settles, and the experience becomes richer and more valuable. Meditation’s goal is not to really enjoy the experience of meditating but to have carry over and improve mindfulness during the day. Every minute or hour meditating increases the habit of being mindful during the day and this is the true wonder of meditation. If instead of Meditation, the word Meditation was replaced and was called “Retraining the Brain so I am much more Happy, Patient and Like Everyone More”, maybe more people would do it. A great example of how I see the benefit of mindfulness is as follows: one of my teenage children does something that angers me and I notice I have gotten angry within a second of the anger appearing in my consciousness. I think, “I am getting angry. Is this an emotion I want to cultivate or not cultivate? This is not an emotion I want to have or give into.” I then can try and really observe the anger. I can try and feel where the anger is and what it is. Oh…it is a feeling of energy in my chest. I can then welcome it’s appearance like a child (great Thich Nhat Hahn advice), say hello to the anger and then let it go. I realize this might seem crazy but it works. Imagine getting angry less. That should be sufficient motivation to meditate. Imagine feeling angry less…the mindfulness allows one to truncate negative thoughts so instead of ruminating about how some jerk did something wrong for 20 minutes, that thought lasts very little time. The more you meditate the more mindful you will likely be during the day. The more mindful the more happy. “A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” Mindfulness is a truly wonderful change in my life. The really pleasurable feelings I have had during meditation have only occurred after sitting for a while (usually after 40 minutes or 50 minutes). I realize the goal of meditating is not these feelings, but I have had very unusually great feelings after meditating a long time and I see no reason to not enjoy them. My happiness and equanimity is better the more I meditate. One hour is better than 30 minutes. 2 hours better than 1. By the way, one hour in the morning is my favorite way to start any day. The science of meditation benefits shows there is no substitute for the time put in. It is great to hear of people meditating 10 minutes, but there is no way a person who meditates 10 minutes a day for a year will get the same benefit as a person who meditates an hour a day for a year. This is true for someone practicing violin, tennis, chess or meditation. They all require practice, and preferably deep practice. Richard Davidson and Daniel Goleman have great book on this: Altered Traits. Finally, I think a consistent practice of 1 hour per day with reading about meditation and the mind can you lead you to be consistently happier. If you have the same experience other people and I have had, you will like people more, feel more connected to people, care about people more, be less judgmental, more patient, less angry and love people you loved more. I am not saying pain is not pain or that when things go bad that it doesn’t stink…just that the benefits are enormous. Best wishes to you. Just reread and wanted to edit in this way: it took me perhaps a year to work up to an hour a day. I started with Headspace app/website 10 minutes a day. I do think that is great place to start. Build up slowly to an hour a day. If you hate doing it you will quit. If sitting 20 minutes feels like an eternity, do not do 20 minutes. It took me about 500 days of meditation before I reached a point where I really looked forward to meditating and wanted to meditate a lot. It is a journey many people do not take, or abandon, but stick with it and I doubt you will regret it. 52.9K views View 199 upvotes View 2 shares