You likely know that meditation has no shortage of benefits for your mind, mood, sleep quality, physical performance, and then some. But what you may not know is how long you should meditate for to experience the results you’re seeking. Do longer meditation lengths necessarily lead to greater benefits? Can short yet frequent sessions move the needle in significant ways?

We dug through research and spoke with meditation experts to uncover if there’s actually an ideal length of time to meditate. Plus: how to time your own meditation sessions to ensure they yield the best results for you.

How Long Should You Meditate?

The “best” length of time to meditate will vary from person to person based on a variety of factors, such as your experience level, your purpose for meditating, and what you hope to achieve from your practice. There’s no one optimal meditation length to shoot for—for some folks, five minutes feels right, and for others, a 30-minute session yields the most benefits.

Here are a few factors to consider when debating how long you should meditate:

1. Your Personality

According to Peloton meditation instructor Mariana Fernández, your personality type can play a role in the ideal meditation length for you. “Some folks are super type-A and some of us are just a little more free-spirited,” she says. People in the former group may prefer to stick to a set amount of time, building their way up incrementally over the long run. Those in the latter group, says Mariana, may prefer less regimented routines and find that they’ll enjoy shorter sessions on certain days and benefit from longer ones when they need more support. 

She suggests leaning into your innate preferences, “as long as they don’t box you in or guilt you, because then that defeats the purpose of what meditation is supposed to do.”

2. Your “Why”

Your reason for meditating in the first place may also impact how long you should meditate for. “In general, the bigger the purpose, the more meditation time is needed,” says Yasmine Saad, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and the founder and CEO of Madison Park Psychological Services in New York City. “The longer you meditate, the more you can heal or create clarity within yourself.” 

For example, a five-minute practice may do the trick to help you regroup after a stressful day at work, whereas longer sessions may be more impactful if you’re meditating to support healing from grief or trauma.

3. Your Current Frame of Mind

How long you should meditate for can also vary based on your present state—which can change from one day to the next, Saad notes—as it’ll influence the overall quality of your sessions. If, say, you’re feeling antsy or aren’t as eager as usual to meditate, maybe you practice for five minutes; if you’re feeling inspired or in need of more support, perhaps you go for a 15- or 20-minute session.

4. Your Meditation Experience and Comfort Levels

When it comes to meditation, “something is always better than nothing,” Mariana says. But if you’re aiming to optimize or advance your practice, Saad recommends gently pushing your limits. “You always want to stretch yourself, but not so much that you dread it,” she explains. That said, she urges you to first work on meditating on a consistent basis before adding time to your meditations. (More on that later.)

How to Pick the Best Amount of Time to Meditate for You

There are unique benefits associated with different meditation lengths, whether you choose to practice for five minutes or 30 minutes (or more!). If you’re wondering how long you should meditate for, here are a few distinctive advantages and considerations of various meditation lengths to keep in mind:

Meditating for 5 Minutes

“Habit and regularity trump length of time as a first step of mediation,” Saad emphasizes. As such, she says that meditating for five minutes at a time is a great starting point for beginners to stay motivated and promote adherence. 

For those new to meditation or who have fallen out of practice, “the main focus should not be achieving a meditative state or being present, but to build a habit,” Saad says. “Once the habit is achieved, [you can work to] increase the length of time without losing the habit.”

Plus, five-minute sessions allow you to keep up with your practice even on busy days when a longer meditation simply isn’t feasible with your schedule. Shorter sessions can also help you ease into meditation and encourage you to keep at it.

“I started off with a lot of five- and 10-minute meditations to give myself some grace and loosen the expectation a little bit after struggling with [longer] meditations when I was first exposed to meditation,” Mariana says. “The beauty of meditating is that if you can gift yourself even five minutes, then it’s something—and something is better than nothing.” She adds that even short sessions offer an anchor to tune into your breath and find stillness.

Impressively, a small 2020 randomized controlled trial published in the American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care found that a guided five-minute peace meditation was effective in providing instant (albeit momentary) relief from suffering and improving spiritual wellbeing in adult palliative care patients.

Meditating for 5 minutes may be right for you if:

Meditating for 10–15 Minutes

Meditations that are 10 minutes in length are still beginner-friendly for most, so it’s worth aiming for this length even if you’re just starting out. Boosting your sessions by five-minute intervals can be accessible and beneficial alike.

Mariana says she usually likes to meditate for 15 minutes or more. “If I give myself more time to settle, it really helps placate the dark cloud that I sometimes feel coming in,” Mariana shares. (Pro tip: Mariana suggests using a timer so you’re not distracted trying to guess how many minutes have passed. Of course, guided meditations—such as those on the Peloton App, which range from five to 30 minutes—will easily sidestep this issue.)

A 2019 study published in the journal Behavioural Brain Research investigated the effects of 13-minute daily meditations in non-experienced adults over the course of eight weeks. Compared to adults in the control group (who listened to podcasts instead), participants who meditated displayed:

Another 2018 study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience suggests that 10-minute meditations (versus control activities) improved attention in novice meditators.

In addition, meditating for 15 minutes may be a sweet spot for those with demanding or stressful workloads. A small 2011 study published in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine investigated the effects of breathing meditations—ranging in five, 15, and 30 minutes in length—in healthy female healthcare professionals over the course of four weeks. When performed once or twice daily, 15-minute meditations proved to be the best amount of time to meditate to not only improve perceived stress, anxiety, and quality of life, but to also promote adherence to meditating regularly.

Meditating for 10–15 minutes may be right for you if:

Meditating for 20 Minutes

Meditating for 20 minutes is a solid benchmark for intermediate practitioners.

According to a 2023 study published in the journal Scientific Reports, 20 minutes may also be a good amount of time to meditate if you possess trait mindfulness (aka the innate ability to stay present without judgment) and are hoping to reduce anxious feelings with your meditation practice. In the study, participants with trait mindfulness who meditated for a single 20-minute session experienced greater decreases in state anxiety than people with the same quality who meditated for only 10 minutes. (Meditating for either amount of time, however, yielded minimal differences in state mindfulness among all participants.)

You can also choose to break up 20-minute meditations throughout the day. A 2024 randomized controlled trial published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology found that dual 10-minute meditations daily may have the same improvements (on depression, anxiety, loneliness, experiential avoidance, fear of missing out, and self-compassion) as a single 20-minute meditation in distressed undergraduate students new to the practice. The study authors concluded that as long as the total amount of meditation practice per day remains constant, the distribution of that time may not impact the beneficial outcomes. They also noted the added benefit of distributing meditations throughout the day in terms of increased accessibility.

Meditating for 20 minutes may be right for you if:

Meditating for 30 Minutes or More

Meditating for 30 minutes, 60 minutes, or more is typically best suited to advanced practitioners. In many cases, people who can comfortably meditate—staying calm, present, and focused—for these longer stints of time have successfully scaled up their practice over time.

Half-hour-long sessions are wonderful for some folks, but if you’re not ready for a 30-minute meditation, don’t worry. Logging less time on your meditation mat won’t make you “fall short.” In fact, a 2023 randomized controlled trial published in the journal Mindfulness found that adults who meditated for either 10 or 30 minutes daily for two weeks demonstrated increased scores for wellbeing and mindfulness and decreased scores for distress.

Ideally, once your meditation ends, you’ll feel a sense of peace, believe that the time was well spent, and want to continue your practice. On the other hand, if you end your meditation feeling more agitated than when you started—perhaps with a sense of “failure” that you couldn’t stay present or if you became too physically or emotionally uncomfortable—then it could be worth dialing back the session length.

Meditating for 30 minutes or more may be right for you if:

How About Meditation Frequency?

Even more important than how long you meditate for in a single session is how frequently you meditate, according to Saad. If that means meditating more often but for shorter amounts of time—say, five minutes every day rather than 30 minutes once a week—she recommends doing the former and prioritizing short-but-steady sessions.

To put things into context, Saad offers the analogy of saving $5 six times a week versus $30 once a week. “The interest on the $5 [six times a week] accumulates and gives you a bit more than the $30 a week,” she says. “For our mind, the five minutes of meditation decreased some stress levels or cleared some thoughts, even minimally. Something healthy happened, and you built on this improved state, whereas the 30 minutes [might have] had a bigger impact at the time of meditation, but will not accrue the same.” 

But above all, do what you find resonates best with you—both in terms of how long you meditate for and how often you practice. “The beauty of meditation is that there’s no one-size-fits-all,” Mariana says. “Do what works for you and what brings you a sense of presence and stillness.”

This could extend to seated meditations, walking meditations, or even meditating in bed, regardless of if each session is a brief five minutes long or an hour-plus. “The benefits [of meditation] come when you find a way that works for you,” Mariana says.

The Takeaway

How long you should meditate ultimately depends on where you are in your practice, what your goals are, and how you feel (plus what you need) on any given day. The quality of your sessions will also inform if that session length is doing the trick, if you’re ready for a longer meditation length, or if you need to take things down a notch. Arguably more important than meditating for a set amount of time, however, is ensuring that you meditate on a consistent basis and actually benefit from doing so.

Most importantly, remember that there’s no right or wrong way to meditate. You can explore many different types of meditation on the Peloton App, with guided classes ranging from five to 30 minutes in length.