This week’s Better You, Backed by Science is about micropractice.
Despite the best will in the world, many people struggle to find time to meditate – even when they know it’s good for them.
I’m no exception.
There are days when I feel like I have ten hours of work to do and only five hours to do it in. On days like these, the idea of fitting in a 20-minute meditation can feel almost impossible.
But I discovered that regular micro-meditations work surprisingly well for me.
What do I mean by micro-meditations?
I’m talking about one minute. I simply put a 1-minute timer on my phone and just breath mindfully for that minute. That’s it.
But the key is consistency – I do it every hour, and sometimes every half hour. One minute literally feels like nothing at all. There’s no sense that I need to find the time to ‘fit it in’. It benefits me so much that it made me wonder:
Can something really this short make a difference? So I did some digging.
Micropractice
It turns out there’s research into what scientists call “micropractice” – contemplative practices lasting just seconds.
In one randomised controlled trial, psychologist Eli Susman and colleagues taught university students a 20-second practice called self-compassionate touch.
Yes, you heard that right. Twenty seconds!
Participants placed one hand on their chest and another on their belly – or used another form of touch that helped them experience a sense of warmth and kindness towards themselves. And then they practised it for just 20 seconds a day. For a month. Another group did a 20-second finger-tapping exercise as a comparison.
The results were fascinating. Across everyone, there wasn’t a significant difference in the outcomes the researchers measured. But that’s because not everyone actually did the practice.
But among those who actually did do their practice regularly – more than 28 times during the month – those practising self-compassionate touch had increased self-compassion and reduced stress compared with the control group.
Twenty seconds. Amazing. To get more self-compassion and less stress. It’s almost unbelievable. I almost fell off my chair when I read it.
But as with my observation, the key was consistency. A practice doesn’t necessarily have to be long to be useful.
I think there’s something psychologically freeing about that. Because we can easily turn wellbeing practices into another standard we fail to meet.
Like “I should meditate for 20 minutes,” or “I should exercise for 1 hour.”
Whereas asking ourselves, “What’s the smallest version of this I could actually do?” removes much of the friction. Because when we can’t manage the ideal, we often do nothing at all.
So maybe: One minute of mindful breathing, twenty seconds of self-compassion, a few slow breaths between meetings… is enough.
Because maybe the most useful practice isn’t the longest one. It’s the one that’s small enough that you actually do it.
And a follow-up…
Just when I was finished writing this, I found a very recent follow-up study by Susman and colleagues, literally just published two weeks ago. It tested whether helping to turn the 20-second practice into a habit would improve outcomes.
Volunteers were randomised to a group doing the micropractice only or doing the micropractice but with instruction on how to turn it into a habit.
Using a national US adult sample of 497 people and following them for six months, the habit-support group practiced more often, developed greater automaticity and self-compassion, and had greater reductions in mental-health symptoms than the micropractice-only group.
Another thumbs up for the power of consistency.
Try This
Try a 20-second self-compassion practice every day for the next week.
To create a habit, anchor it to something you typically do.
E.g., while you’re waiting on the kettle boiling, or if you’re waiting on a train or bus. Even twenty seconds before you start brushing your teeth.
And you can do more than one twenty-second session in a day if you want to.
For each practice, simply put one hand on your belly, another on your chest, and breathe while intending kindness and warmth to yourself.
Think of it like giving yourself a hug.
References
The micropractice paper. Link.
The recent follow-up. Link.
More
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