The 1 Minute Meditation

After all the trials and tribulations I, like many other experienced—and with more to come—I still wake up in the morning not knowing what kind of day it will be. Will it be thunderous, or will my mind and soul feel clear? Que será, será…

What I do know is that a small change, a simple skill I’ve learned to incorporate into my life, has become my main tool when it comes to managing and changing my reactions to life’s difficult moments, whether they’re caused by external influences or internal turbulence.

In early 2026, I was fortunate enough to join a six-week course offered in the city’s central business district called Meditation for Beginners, run by a school led by a man named Matt Young, who could best be described as sitting somewhere between an eccentric and a calm, collected, preppy man.

Prior to this six-week experience, I had already dipped my toes into mindfulness and meditation practices, both through my yoga practice and through various guided meditations via apps and recorded sessions on YouTube.

There is not much to it. Meditation is a tool to relax the body and calm the mind.

I had also studied, albeit superficially, the effects of meditation during my honours year in Psychology, when we explored the benefits and research supporting traditional meditation, as well as how newer branches of Western psychology (e.g. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) are starting to incorporate mindfulness as a therapeutic tool.

Through both study and guided meditation, I have become aware, and repeatedly reminded, that meditation (or whatever you may call the intentional practice of focus or awareness) does not have to be a day-long commitment, or even a minimum of 20 minutes. In fact, it is generally accepted that one can gain many of the benefits of meditation—such as improved focus, calmness, physical relaxation, and emotional regulation—by practicing for just five minutes a day over a period of time, say, a month.

And that is not too different from what we were taught by Matt on those six Thursday nights. Five minutes of meditation is five minutes well spent, possibly as beneficial as fifteen or more, and definitely better than not meditating at all. But we pushed the idea further. What if we only had one minute to meditate? What if we meditated differently, not sitting down in the lotus position (though I love meditating while seated), but relaxing on a chair, or standing while waiting for the elevator to reach the top floor? What about moving mindfully; is that meditation?

After all, at its simplest, all that we do to be mindful, or to "meditate" is to place focus on something: a thought, our breath, emotions, or something more transcendental. You focus on something, most likely lose that focus, and hopefully attempt to focus again.

The idea, which I also explored in some readings I picked up after the classes ended (see: The 5 Minute Meditator and Meditation Made Easy), is that all meditation, once we understand what defines it, is valuable. Furthermore, it does not have to be driven by discipline, necessity, or dogma. You can crave a meditation session in the same way you might want to listen to your favourite song, or feel the need for it like the desire for a good movie on a Wednesday night.

We have deluded ourselves into thinking that more is always better, that everything must have a goal, and that things must be driven by purpose or achieved through sweat and tears. This may be true for some things, at certain times, and for some people. But small victories come from small challenges, or, even better, from noticing day by day that what you do, you do for pleasure, and that the results are simply happy byproducts.

That shift in perspective has quietly changed how I move through my days. Instead of setting aside “perfect” time to meditate, I find myself noticing small openings: the pause before replying to a message, the few breaths between tasks, the stillness of an early morning before the world fully wakes. In those moments, the practice becomes less about doing meditation “properly” and more about returning, again and again, to a sense of presence. Sometimes it’s just a single breath taken with intention; other times it stretches into a few minutes of quiet awareness. Either way, it counts.

Over time, these small, almost unremarkable moments begin to add up. I’ve found that I react a little less sharply, listen a little more closely, and recover more quickly when things feel off balance. It’s not a dramatic transformation, but rather a subtle recalibration, one that feels both sustainable and real. And perhaps that’s the point: not to chase some ideal state of constant calm, but to build a relationship with attention that is flexible, forgiving, and always available, no matter how ordinary the moment may seem.

But how do we go about it? Let’s try the easiest and most natural thing we can do right now. Close your eyes and inhale. Pay attention to yourself doing it, then exhale, and if you can, make it just a little longer than the inhale. Notice it, and then stop there, or repeat it as many times as you like.

Did anything shift at all?

I really enjoy longer meditation sessions, which, to be honest, are never much longer than twenty minutes for me. But I don’t practice them often, and I’ve reached a point where I honestly don’t care whether I do a long session or not. If we reflect on it, each breath is a victory; it quite literally means we are here, safe and sound, or at least alive.

On a good day, that’s all that matters. On the harder days, perhaps we need something stronger.