by Gabriel Brogan

Break is over, January is here, and the 3rd marking period is upon us. It feels like we have been in school a long time, and yet, the home stretch is still far off. It is winter, and it is cold. The sun sinks hours before we go to bed and doesn’t rise for an hour after we wake up. For many of us, it can be hard to stay motivated.

It’s too early to put the student-car in neutral and coast for the rest of the year, and just muscling through ‘till the bitter end doesn’t seem so attractive a prospect either. We may not be able to change our circumstances, but we can change the way we respond to them. Enter: meditation.

You’ve probably heard of meditation, and may have, as I once did, scoffed at it. There are many variants of meditation, but in its most basic form it works something like this: you close your eyes, sit still, and focus on your breathing. It’s not “productive,” it won’t get you in shape or get you into college. Why bother? Well, what meditation will do is ground you in the moment, clear your (potentially) racing thoughts, and bring the rest of the world into focus. 

This all might seem a little abstract. I could list all of the clinically proven benefits of meditation— reduced stress, better sleep, improved focus, more stable mood, etc—but the only way to learn the extent of meditation’s effect is to try it yourself. I have been meditating for around two months, and it has profoundly changed how I move through the world. 

Before I started my practice, it was easy to feel buffeted by things in my life I couldn’t control. Weekends passed too quickly, school days too slowly; I felt like I was just distracting myself in my free time until I had to return to the daily drudgery of life. 

This is not to say I was operating in a depressed stupor- I was operating on the most common, most default of settings. I dreaded the obligations I found “boring” and thought all the good times happened in the moments outside of the grind: weekends, breaks, etc. I was putting in the time until those moments arrived, then felt cheated when they seemed to fly by without my full awareness. 

My meditation practice (which is about 5-15 minutes of sitting still, clearing my head, and breathing deeply every night) has not only given me awareness, but acceptance and gratitude. Focusing on nothing but your surroundings and your breath grounds you like nothing else, and keeps you more grounded throughout the day. When you are meditating, you are really, truly, there, not numbing your brain with your phone until your next responsibility. It is the polar opposite of an “out of body” experience- you are aware of everything happening in your body and your immediate environment in minute detail, without doing anything at all. For many of us, this can be a completely alien experience. Being a teenager in the 21st century leaves little time for being still, and what time we have we often fidget away. As a result, meditation can at first be uncomfortable, but you don’t have to go full throttle on day 1. Build up to longer periods of meditation, even a minute per day is a good start. 

Awareness isn’t all meditation will give you. After consistent practice, meditation will not only ground you in reality but help you accept it. When you meditate, you realize that the end of the day isn’t coming any sooner or any later, neither is the weekend, or your lunch period, or summer break. To zone out or hop on TikTok until they happen is robbing you of precious moments during what you may normally consider the “boring” part of your day. Becoming more aware means you are more aware of everything, the fun and the boring, and you are truly present for them both. You might find yourself taking an interest in what you’re learning in class. If not, class will at least be a lot easier to sit through. You can’t speed up the clock, might as well enjoy what you can while you’re there. 

So you’re sitting there in class, accepting that time won’t speed up for you, aware of everything going on around you and in your own head. That might not sound pleasant. But instead of despair, meditation trains in you an unlikely impulse: gratitude. If you’re constantly tuning out the world, so many of life’s little moments will pass you by. A shared smile with a friend across the room. The teacher’s cringey joke about “graphing time.” A really good bite of your sandwich. When you’re mentally present, you catch them all. You realize, for yourself, without the aid of some cliche quote on the wall, that there actually is so much to be grateful for. Not only are you unable to speed time up, but eventually, you won’t want to. 

This hasn’t meant to be a guide to the particulars of meditation- there are countless videos online that will walk you through it step by step. Some meditation is guided, some isn’t, some will have you focus on your bodily sensations, others might have you focus on your surroundings. Meditation is rooted in Hindu and Buddhist tradition thousands of years old, and has since branched off into many different styles. Find out what type works for you. I personally use the app “Insight Timer,” which tracks your meditation goals/minutes/streak and has thousands of guided meditation tracks for literally any aspect of life. 

Despite all these resources, you don’t need anything to meditate. It can be three deep breaths with your eyes closed, or it can be two hours on a special cushion in a special room of your house with a special bell. However you choose to incorporate meditation into your life, I can guarantee meditation will change it.