This is the height of holiday stress. Here a fast stress reliever:
• Choose a quiet corner
• Turn egg timer on 5 minutes
• Sit with crossed legs on the floor on a cushion; or on a chair
• Keep your back straight - let the top of your head touch Heavens
• Hands: palms-up and open on your knees
• Closed eyes
• Breathe in and out slowly – always start with exhaling (counting regularly might help the beginner)
• Do not move at all except keeping your back straight
• Empty your brain from thoughts and outside disturbances
• Pay attention to your sensations: breathing, aches, itches, fears, etc.:
• Let them happen.
• Stop when the clock rings
• Go on with your day with renewed energy and purpose.
The Five-Minutes Meditation is useful when
• you are stressed out
• your emotions overwhelm you (anger, sadness, anxiety, jealousy, etc.)
• you are tempted to binge out on food (perfect to do before each meal in obesity, for instance)
• you suffer with sleeplessness - just do it before retiring to bed
• you are listless and bored and procrastinating
• you have high blood pressure
• you have pains - instead of taking pills
For really learning to meditate, there are good programs, groups, and courses available.
Do not attempt to increase the time above 5 minutes.
Citation
"Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It's about feeling the way you feel. It's not about making the mind empty or still, although stillness does deepen in meditation and can be cultivated systematically. Above all, meditation is about letting the mind be as it is and knowing something about how it is in this moment. It's not about getting somewhere else, but allowing yourself to be where you already are. If you don't understand this, you will think you are constitutionally unable to meditate. But that's just more thinking and, in this case, incorrect thinking at that."
"But to stay at it for even five minutes requires intentionality. To make it part of your life requires some discipline. " (From: Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are).