18 Types of Meditation and How to Do Them Properly

Mindfulness meditation is a practice that trains your attention to focus on the present moment, bringing awareness to your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations without judgment. By focusing on your breath and gently returning your attention when your mind wanders, you can cultivate calmness, reduce stress, and gain a better understanding of your mental patterns.

Transcendental Meditation (TM) involves silently repeating a mantra, a specific sound or word, for 20 minutes twice a day. Unlike mindfulness meditation, it doesn’t require actively focusing on thoughts or achieving a blank mind. Instead, the mantra effortlessly guides your attention inwards, promoting a state of deep relaxation and inner peace that carries positive effects throughout your day.

Loving-kindness meditation cultivates positivity by directing goodwill towards yourself and others. You start by silently repeating phrases like “May I be happy” while focusing on feelings of warmth and self-acceptance. Gradually, you extend these good wishes to loved ones, acquaintances, and even challenging individuals, fostering compassion, forgiveness, and a sense of interconnectedness.

Body scan meditation, also called progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) is a type of meditation that involves mentally travelling through your body and noticing bodily sensations without judgment. In PMR, you tense and release different muscle groups in sequence, amplifying your awareness of tension and allowing it to melt away. Both techniques promote deep relaxation, reduce stress, and improve your body-mind connection.

Zazen, the core of Zen Buddhism, is a seated meditation practice emphasizing posture, breath, and present-moment awareness. Sitting in a mindful position, practitioners focus on their breath without controlling it, observing thoughts and sensations arise and pass away without judgment. This cultivation of stillness and letting go aims to bring insight into your true nature and foster inner peace.

Vipassana meditation, meaning “to see things as they truly are,” is an ancient Buddhist technique focusing on observing your bodily sensations with detached awareness. When you systematically scan your body and noting sensations without judgment, you cultivate insight into the impermanent nature of reality. This deepens your self-awareness, reduces stress, and promotes mental clarity.

Chakra meditation centers on balancing the body’s energy, it is visualized as spinning wheels along your spine. By focusing on each chakra in turn, you can activate or unblock them through visualization, breathing techniques, and mantras. Each chakra is associated with specific colors, emotions, and areas of the body. By balancing your chakras, you aim to achieve greater physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Yoga meditation isn’t a single practice, but rather an umbrella term encompassing the mindful movements and breath control techniques found in yoga. It can involve flowing through postures with focused attention on your breath and body sensations, or holding still meditations while seated or lying down after a yoga session.

This mindful movement and focus can cultivate inner peace, reduce stress, and enhance your connection between mind and body. This combines the physical postures, breathing exercises, and meditation practices of yoga to promote physical and mental well-being.

Mantra meditation is a practice where you silently repeat a calming word, sound, or phrase (mantra) to quiet your mind and achieve a state of deep relaxation by eliminating distraction. By focusing on the mantra’s sound and vibration rather than its meaning, it acts as an anchor, gently drawing your attention back from wandering thoughts and promoting inner peace, focus, and a sense of well-being.

Guided meditation is a technique where a narrator leads you through a meditation session, using their voice to instruct you on breathwork, visualization, and focusing your attention. This can be a great way for beginners to learn meditation fundamentals or for experienced meditators to explore new techniques.

The guide can help you relax, manage stress, cultivate positive emotions, and deepen your meditation practice. This is one of the types of meditation that is always led by a guide or teacher. So, this form uses visualization and instructions to help the practitioner enter a state of relaxation and focus.

Visualization meditation uses the power of your imagination to create vivid mental imagery. By picturing calming scenes, personal goals, or positive emotions, you can cultivate relaxation, reduce stress, and enhance your focus. The key is to engage all your senses, feeling its warmth of the sun on your skin or the taste of success, to fully immerse yourself in the visualization and reap its benefits.

Qigong (pronounced “chee-gong”) is an ancient Chinese practice that combines gentle movement, controlled breathing, and mindfulness exercises. Rooted in traditional Chinese medicine, it aims to cultivate and balance the flow of vital energy (“qi”) within the body, mind, and spirit. There are various styles of qigong, some focusing on health and relaxation, while others emphasize martial arts training or spiritual development. Overall, qigong is seen as a path to improve health, reduce stress, and promote overall well-being.

Sound meditation, also known as a sound bath, uses various instruments or recordings to create a wave of calming sounds that wash over you. These sounds, often produced by gongs, singing bowls, chimes, or nature recordings, can lull your mind into a relaxed state and promote feelings of peace and inner balance. Unlike some meditation practices, sound meditation is more passive, allowing you to focus on the sounds and vibrations rather than actively controlling your thoughts. This can be a great way to de-stress, improve sleep, and enhance your overall sense of well-being.

Breath awareness meditation is a simple yet powerful mindfulness practice that focuses on observing your natural breath without judgment. By paying attention to the rise and fall of your breath, and the sensations in your nostrils or abdomen, you gently train your mind to stay present in the moment. When your attention wanders, as it inevitably will, you simply acknowledge the distraction and return your focus to your breath. This practice cultivates calmness, reduces stress, and improves concentration by strengthening your ability to direct and maintain your attention.

Kundalini meditation, linked to Kundalini yoga, is a powerful practice aimed at awakening coiled energy at the base of your spine. Through breathwork (pranayama), chanting mantras, and specific postures (mudras), it seeks to move this energy through the seven chakras, promoting profound personal transformation and heightened awareness. This can lead to feelings of warmth, tingling, or even temporary discomfort, but ultimately aims to balance your body, mind, and spirit and unlock your full potential.

Tonglen meditation, meaning “giving and taking” in Tibetan, cultivates compassion by training you to breathe in the suffering of others (visualized as smoke) and breathe out well-being and relief (visualized as light). This practice breaks down the self-centered barrier, fostering empathy and a sense of interconnectedness. You can use Tonglen for specific individuals or for general suffering in the world, aiming to alleviate pain and cultivate a more compassionate heart.

Mindful walking meditation transforms your daily walks into a way to cultivate presence. You slow down and focus on the physical sensations of each step, feeling the ground beneath your feet and the movement of your body. By paying attention to your breath and the sights, sounds, and smells around you without judgment, you become more aware of the present moment and less caught up in your thoughts. This simple practice can reduce stress, improve focus, and enhance your appreciation for the world around you.

Trataka, also known as candle gazing meditation, is an ancient yogic technique that uses focused staring at a candle flame to improve concentration, strengthen eyesight, and achieve mental clarity. In a dimly lit room, you gaze steadily at the flame, training your eyes to hold their focus without blinking. After some time, you gently close your eyes, focusing on the afterimage of the flame or visualizing it internally. This practice can bring about inner calmness, reduce stress, and enhance your ability to concentrate.