If you meditate at home, what is your routine?

I meditate in the morning after breakfast for 20 to 30 minutes. I do it on the living room couch. I don’t do it every day. Some mornings I am more rushed than others. I have not had any life changing insights and I struggle to keep my mind from wandering, but I find it a good way to start the day off.

What matters about the location is that you should feel comfortable and undistracted.
Home is the place most of us have available and it is usually comfortable, sometimes too comfortable. And it’s often distracting with food and computers and phones nearby.

Vedanta (yoga) recommends the ‘golden hours’ of early morning, like 4am, 5am, as a time when the energies around us are most harmonious and peaceful.

Taoists will also recommend the late afternoon “hours of dead breath” (approx 3–5 pm) because doing anything with some focus or attention in that time counteracts the inherent decay/entropy of that time of day.

When I have had a good meditation practice it was at a specific time of day and in a particular spot. I found the chair in my home office to be just fine if I shut down all the gadgets in the office first, morning is best for me.
I think an evening meditation before sleep is very useful too, and calming, but I have never cultivated a regular evening meditation time.

I go for a walk in the woods, nearby as I live in a National Park system, so I do not have to go far to reach the trails etc
Nature has a way of soothing and calming the mind.(clearing)
Much of what mediation is all about.

My practice changes as necessary to accommodate my busy schedule. This schedule, during periods where it is possible, works best for me:

- at work during lunch (I have a zafu and zabuton) for about 20 minutes
– in the evening after reading to the kids (I have a zafu that I place on my bed, in place of a zabuton) for 20–40 minutes.

Now, I can’t really pull this every day at this point in my life. But when I could, it seemed ideal for me. I really looked forward to my sitting, and sometimes I would stretch that time out even longer when I had the time, or fit in additional sit when I could. I would also visit a local sangha when I could.

Also, I use Insight Timer (Android & iOS) to signal the end of my session.

Some people stress the need to create a “special” place that is only for meditating. But I found that to be unnecessary and a potential excuse for delaying the start of a practice. Who has the luxury of an an extra room, etc?

I have an every-other-day mini-routine that involves lying on the floor on a heating pad for 20 minutes before an hour’s exercise.. I meditate while on the floor. It is easier now that I shut the door and keep Milo from attacking my feet.

I do the breathing on and off at random during the day, particularly in a doctor’s waiting room.

It’s not much of a “routine”, really. I work it in around all the other bits of my life.

Way back at the beginning I was too inflexible in my routine, and that created unnecessary problems (as inflexibility usually does). My wife doesn’t practice. She really needed me to demonstrate a willingness to adapt my sitting to whatever else was going on, even if that meant sitting at awkward times, or not at all on a given day. Things went much more smoothly when I figured that out.

The kids are gone now, which opens up more time, but I still schedule my sitting to not cut into time with my wife. These days, I sit when she does her evening treadmill workout. I’ve learned to sit with the thump, thump, thump coming from upstairs. My sitting lasts however long her workout does, usually 45 minutes or so. I just stop when the thumping stops.

It’s not ideal, I guess. That’s sure not the time of day I feel most alert. But I’ve stopped believing that “ideal” really matters. There’s something beneficial in just making do with whatever you’ve got to work with, ideal or not.

I tend to sit on a cushion on a bed. That’s not ideal either, because the mattress gives too much, but oh well.

I’m lucky that in addition to all of this very unstructured home sitting, I’m at the temple several times a week. There, everything is “just so” for sitting: great space with all the right cushions, etc. It’s a good mix actually, having the more ad hoc home practice interspersed with the formal temple practice.

Light a tea candle, and look towards it but not directly at it, concentrate on my breathing until my mind is empty. Hold for 20 minutes.

I usually do it at night before I sleep. I am told it is better to do it in the morning, but I can hardly cope with still being alive in the mornings, so I do it at night.

I also don’t use a particular room or time.

When I need it I need it. I make the time for it. “The time to relax is when we don’t have time for it.” Jim Goodwin.

I have my alarm set 15 min early and when I wake up I stay in bed. And meditate, focusing more on the breathe of fire to prevent me dozing off. Also at nights is another time. I will also turn off my music in my car and sit in it when I feel emotionally unbalanced.

However when I need it the most is when I am most resistant to it.

Inhale deeply. Hold. Exhale fully. Repack. Repeat.

I have a cushion right next to my bed; plus a candle. Earlier this year it was regularly twice a day, an hour at a time; vipassana. Now it’s less regular. I have meditation cushions at my parent’s and my grandma’s, so when I stay over I can still meditate. It makes a huge difference just to be able to align my spine.

When I feel off balance or just not quite right, I do this.

Light candles, burn essential oils (Lavender is my favorite). Have a shower also using some lavender in my sponge. Then lay down and choose anything from natural streams to hypnotic meditations on You Tube.

I also use a method a self talk and breathing. A self hypnosis. Where I relax my entire body and visualize the things I want or need. In great detail.