Is It Better to Meditate In the Morning or Evening?

What time of day to meditate is one of those questions that crops up from time to time and isn’t easy to answer.

A lot depends on your own personal preference and when you can best fit it in to your schedule.

My personal routine is to meditate last thing at night, before I go to sleep, as I find it helps me to relax and I sleep better.

Other people I know find that meditating first thing in the morning helps them to get out of sleepy mode and adds a bit of bounce to their day.

And others just fit their meditation into their regular schedule as and when they get a gap. That takes a lot more discipline because there’s no daily habit involved. Which means you’re more likely to get out of the habit or forget to meditate entirely.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be an “either or” option – you could always meditate more than once a day. There’s no rule that says you should only meditate once a day. It’s you who makes that decision.

Experiment to find what works best for you both in terms of your daily schedule and also how you feel during the day. You may also find that weekdays and weekends call for a different regime.

Benefits of a morning meditation

A morning meditation can help you start the day the right way. It literally sets the tone for the day and makes sure that you’re as chilled as you can be for the day ahead.

It also has the advantage that it’s more likely to happen – life hasn’t got in the way of your schedule unless you’re the kind of person who keeps pressing “snooze” on their alarm clock of course. In which case you need to learn not to do that – maybe breaking the habit of a lifetime. I’m not sure if they’re still available but a few years ago I saw an alarm clock that ejected 4 jigsaw pieces when it went off and wouldn’t stop bleeping until all 4 were put back in place – could be worth investigating if you’re a persistent offender first thing in the morning.

A lot of people report that when they meditate in the morning, they are more relaxed and focused for the day which helps with work and other events that happen. If you’re in a stressful job or having a stressful time, meditating first thing in the morning could be just what you need to help you get through the day.

Benefits of an evening meditation

For me, the main benefit is that it helps me chill out before going to sleep.

That, coupled with a few obvious things like making sure my bedroom is as dark as possible, not having caffeine after noon (otherwise I don’t sleep well) and not getting any screen time too close to bed all help as well. The meditation is the extra thing that helps all those options gel together.

I use a binaural beats meditation – I’m lazy and don’t want to spend years “getting it right”, I’d rather let the beats take my brain straight into a deep, relaxing, meditative state. Some friends who use similar programs find that the binaural beats keep them awake at night, so they prefer to use them in the morning. I’m not a scientist but my best guess would be that it’s just down to the fact that we’re all slightly different.

Which is an admittedly long winded way of saying experiment to see which works best for you.

Benefits of ad hoc meditations

Sometimes I’ll play myself a meditation track during the day.

My reasons for doing that are if I need a bit of personal time during the day – so these are an extra session to my regular evening listening time. I use them in the same way as other people might use a power nap.

Ad hoc meditations – especially relatively quick ones that fit into your schedule – are a great way to have a quick chill to yourself and can reivitalize you, ready for the rest of the day.

For me, in the years I’ve been meditating, I’ve found the benefits to be that I’m more relaxed than I was before I took this up, even on days where the stresses and strains of modern life seem to conspire to make that unlikely.

I’ve done a comparison of the main binaural beats meditation programs here but “Cliff’s Notes” version is that my favorite is the Zen12 meditation program – it’s the one I use daily and the fact that it does all the work in just 12 minutes means it fits with anyone’s schedule.