How Much to Meditate

Previous chapters have shown that you don't need to meditate for hours at a time to achieve real benefits. Let's look at the evidence of the benefits.
Cary Barbot has written:

Recent research indicates that meditating brings about dramatic effects in as little as a 10-minute session. Several studies have demonstrated that subjects who meditated for a short time showed increased alpha waves (the relaxed brain waves) and decreased anxiety and depression.

In "Why Meditate?" I mentioned that short amounts of time are beneficial, and that you don't need to set aside hours each day. Now research documents that even ten minutes can prove very beneficial.
Ten minutes a day, according to many meditation teachers, is far more beneficial than an hour and ten minutes once a week. 

We can set aside ten minutes a day. That is less than the average break time you get at work, for example, and a meditation break has healthy advantages.

Cary Barbor again:

"I was approached by young practitioners of transcendental meditation who asked me to monitor their blood pressure . . . what we found was astonishing. Through the simple act of changing their thought patterns, the subjects experienced decreases in their metabolism, breathing rate and brain wave frequency. These changes appeared to be the opposite of the commonly known "fight or flight" response, and I called it the "relaxation response."

 This study included a control period during which the subjects simply sat quietly, but were not meditating. The results suggest that by learning to meditate, you can effectively change your body's response to events. The "fight or flight" response triggers a surge of adrenaline, speeds the heart rate, and may prepare the blood to clot more readily. A continued, or prolonged "fight or flight" response can lead to cardiovascular stress and disease. The "relaxation response" has the reverse physical result, and is shown to reduce indicators of heart disease.