Does it feel like we’re living in the age of anxiety?

It seems our lives are more demanding, stressful, and distracting than ever before.

The constant barrage of information flooding our digital devices, coupled with our ongoing responsibilities and obligations as professionals, parents, and students can wreak havoc on our peace of mind.

Are you feeling it in your own life?

Do you ever wish there was a button you could push to escape the madness and find your center?

One of the best things you can do to improve your mental health and reclaim inner peace is to practice meditation.

You’re committed to building a mindfulness habit, and you already have some idea of when you’ll practice and for how long.

The one issue you keep running into, though, is whether you should use mindfulness questions or prompts to get you started.

Should you be asking questions about mindfulness or mindful questions about yourself?

What are the right questions to ask?

And what do you gain by asking them?

Do you want to become a regular meditator but don’t know the ideal time of day for your practice?

As long as you can spare a few minutes a day, you can maintain a daily meditation habit.

You’ll need to attach your practice to a daily trigger to cue you to meditate.

A trigger is an established habit like brushing your teeth in the morning or changing clothes at the end of the workday.

But how do you decide on a good time to meditate that fits with your trigger and your current routines?

Meditation during different times of the day have different benefits.

Let’s take a look so you can discover what works best for you.

If you take nothing else from this post, trust that it’s 100% okay to meditate while lying down.

And if that’s the only way you feel calm enough to meditate, you’re far better off lying down than giving up on meditation entirely.

True, it has its downsides.

But, for many of us, so does the lotus position (even the half-lotus).

And while sitting up is generally the most popular position for meditation, it’s not the only one with both short-term and long-term benefits.

Read on to see why.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Acceptance is not passive.

It’s not giving up.

You’re not pledging to be the universe’s doormat.

The goal is to accept what you cannotchange—not what you can.

Accepting what is doesn’t mean you stop trying to make the world better.

If anything, it frees up energy for doing just that.

So, what can you do today to stop spinning your wheels and find real peace?

Mindfulness turns down the pressure that you feel regarding future concerns or past regrets.

It pulls you entirely into the present moment, allowing you to appreciate and savor your experiences.

The concept arises from meditation practices in which you focus on the here and now without judgment

Mindful breathing and guided imagery can release stress from the body and help you relax.

Writing exercises, also known as mindfulness journaling, can produce similar results.

With the right mindfulness journal, you can battle feelings of anxiety and find more gratitude in daily life.

Whatever your background, mindfulness meditation is accessible to everyone.

But have you ever kept a guided meditation journal — or any kind of meditation journal?

What does writing have to do with meditation, anyway?

Doesn’t writing have to do with thinking?

And aren’t you supposed to have a quiet mind to reap the benefits of meditation?

As you’ll see further on with our meditation journaling examples, writing and meditation are more alike than you might think.

Often when people consider meditation, they have a vague sense it’s something they should be doing, but they aren’t exactly sure why.

And the “should” part makes it just another self-improvement obligation, like eating more vegetables.

Sitting on the floor thinking about nothing seems like a big fat waste of time, especially if you’ve tried it once or twice and figured out how difficult it is to quiet your mind.

It’s easy to lose your cool when one of your kids does something you’ve told him not to do a million times before.

It’s especially easy when you’re already feeling weighed down by worries and irritations that have been piling up in your internal world.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Being mindful is great when you’ve got time to relax, but when you feel agitated and justifiably frustrated with your kids, who has time to be mindful?”

Mindful parenting isn’t just for those moments when you’re about to lose your cool.

In fact, practicing mindfulness as a parent can help you stave off many of the situations that trigger emotional outbursts in your child and you.

And the more you make time to practice mindfulness as a parent — and teach your kids to do the same — the more time you create to enjoy the fruits of this habit.

Once you learn how to be a mindful parent (and what that actually means), you’ll wonder why you didn’t learn about it sooner.

Self-reflection isn’t for cowards.

It’s not “navel-gazing,” either. And it’s not something only introverts know how to do.

If you can ask yourself questions and answer them honestly, you can do this.

And the better you know yourself and your deepest leanings, the better you can understand and help others, too.

But how do you reflect on yourself? And what do you get out of it?