4 Things You Can Do This Week to Be a Happier Person

Find a comfortable place to sit, where you won’t be distracted for a few minutes. Silence your phone. Sit comfortably. Then, follow  guided meditation. ( a good text version of the meditation in case you’d rather read it before trying it.)

2) Don’t be hard on yourself when you inevitably get lost in thought or sleepy.

Being lost in thought or sleepy does not mean you’re a bad meditator. The mind does an amazing job of staying busy! And it’s natural to become sleepy when you relax. Be kind to yourself — do not judge yourself. There is no such thing as a bad meditator.

When your mind runs and you eventually notice you’ve been lost in thought, pause for a moment, be aware that you were just thinking, and kindly and gently bring your attention back to your body and breath. You can’t stop the thought or sleepiness, but you can react with kindness and love.

When you notice you’re feeling sleepy, try opening your eyes and resting your gaze on a neutral object, like the floor. If you’re still sleepy, stand up and continuing meditating, either with your eyes open or closed.

3) Try other guided meditations.

There are a wide variety of free, online guided meditations that you should experiment with. Guided meditations can be about awareness, loving kindness (metta), forgiveness, the breath, and many other topics. Experiment and see what you like.

Start with short meditations — 3-10 minutes. As you get more comfortable, experiment with longer meditations — 15, 20, 30, 45 minutes.

Below you will find my favorite guided meditation resources:

• — note, many of these are talks, not meditations. Look specifically for meditations. Talks will be covered later in this guide
• (for purchase) [1]
• (for purchase)

4) Experiment with different postures.

Dharma Talks

These are talks given by Buddhist teachers. My favorites are listed below:

•  by Jack Kornfield
•  by Jack Kornfield
• by Jack Kornfield
• by Jack Kornfield
• by Vinny Ferraro
• by Tara Brach

You can find other Dharma talks at . My favorite teachers are  and , and any monastic such as  and .

Books

My favorite books on this topic are:

• by Thich Nhat Hanh
• by Gil Fronsdal
• by Jack Kornfield

6) Experiment with unguided meditations.

Once you’re comfortable with guided meditations, experiment with unguided meditations. Start short — 5 or 10 minutes. Lengthen them as you get more comfortable. Choose whatever type of meditation feels right — open awareness, breath awareness, loving kindness, etc.

Meditation timers are very useful for unguided meditations. is a great one. You can also use one of the many apps available on the iOS and Android marketplaces. Unfortunately I don’t have a recommendation.

You may also consider getting a singing bell to ring at the end your meditations. I’m not familiar with a good online purchase option. I bought mine at a local Tibetan store.

Also, here’s a great from Tara Brach.

7) Attend a meditation/Buddhist community evening in your area — known as a Sangha.

8) Go on a multi-day, silent meditation retreat.

Your area likely has a retreat center. Google to see what’s available. Ensure the day-to-day schedule, including food and accommodations, will be comfortable for you.

Footnotes

[1] Jack’s CD collection comes with two CDs, each with three meditations. The three meditations are combined into one long audio track, making it hard to jump around between meditations. To help with this, I’ve copy-pasted the start and end of each meditation below.

Breathing Meditation: session: 1 start: 5:17 end: 28:15

Loving Kindness (Metta): session: 1 start: 33:47 end: 55:45

Forgiveness: session: 1 start: 1:00:37 end: (end of session)

Working with Difficulties: session: 2 start: 1:19 end: 11:50

Gratitude and Joy: session: 2 start: 15:00 end: 27:25

Mind like sky session: 2 start: 29:20 end: (end of session)