Mindless Meditations: Your morning routine might be a waste of time.

It had been over 400 days.

Every day I would sit and experience my mind. I've been interested in meditation since I was an undergraduate. Having been studying the brain when meditation was gaining popularity and sharing a campus with Richie Davidson, the world-famous neuroscientist who had studied Buddhist monks' brains, I was primed to be interested in meditation and mindfulness. It never really took shape in my life at the time, though.

In medical school, I sought ways to improve my attention and focus, help with the daily grind and bring some wellness into my life. I came back to meditation. Being a foreign concept, though, I really wasn't sure how to start a meditation practice. Meditation and wellness apps were just beginning to gain traction. I found Headspace to be the perfect combination of ease and intensity.

I started with their "10-pack". 10 minutes a day for 10 days. I was immediately sold. I couldn't describe exactly what felt so helpful; I just felt different. Thoughts were just thoughts and no longer the fodder for mental rabbit holes and the "what-if" games that often drive intrusive anxiety. It helped transform my relationship with my mind. I could step outside of my thoughts and see them for what they were – thoughts – not facts.

As I continued into my residency training, meditation continued to be important to me. Still, it wasn't necessarily a regular part of my day. It was more challenging to stay consistent because of shifting schedules and the intensity of my daily life. That changed around the time Everly was born, though. I decided that my approach to everything in my life would need to change somehow and allow for more flexibility. That was a crucial lesson for me; don't let perfect get in the way of something.

To that point, I had this mental block that told me meditation needed to be a certain amount of time, in a particular place without anything happening around me. As a new parent, nothing happens perfectly scripted - regardless of what all the parent Instagram accounts say. I decided that 1 minute of meditation was better than 0 minutes, and so began a streak of meditating every day, lasting over 400+ days. Most days were a few minutes just before bed; some were longer. I linked my bedtime routine with meditating and didn't miss a day.

I could feel the positive changes I had noticed in medical school come back into my life. I felt less reactionary. The angst that comes with professional obligations and feeling like you need to "get more done" settled out. It helped me deal with the challenges of raising a newborn.

It didn't last, though.

After a while, I started to feel a sense of routine. It began to feel like driving a car, in a bad way. I would sit, breath, close my eyes and follow my breath - then open my eyes and realize I had also been running the day's events on a loop in my mind the whole time. I had gotten so comfortable with the process that I was merely going through the motions.

It was mindless meditation.

So I stopped; I didn't meditate again for two months. At first, I felt shame about the disconnect between considering myself a "meditator" but not "meditating." Then I gave myself permission to let that go because I realized that the action was nothing without the intention. Now, as I think and reflect on how I want to bring meditation back into my daily life, I continue to ask myself, "how do you keep the intention?"

What are you doing every day that has lost its intention? Are your workouts just to cross something off your list, or are you setting your intention every time? Are your meals to just get rid of hunger, or are you intending to fuel your body? How do you communicate with the people you care about?

I'm trying to figure this out every day, I don't know the answers, and I definitely don't know the "right way." Consistency and intention will get you a long way, though.