For many people, a morning cup of coffee is essential. For these people, it isn’t a good morning until their coffee is finished brewing. Something else that can be beneficial to add to your morning routine is time to meditate. Do these ideas fit together, though? Can the drink that wakes you up in the morning coincide with a practice that is meant to calm you down? Yes! Meditation and coffee might be just the thing you need to kickstart your day.

What Is Meditation?

Before we get started, it’s important to clarify exactly what meditation is. When many think of meditation, they often think of something religious or something that will take a lot of time out of their day. While meditation can be religious and intense, it isn’t always. At its core, meditation is a set of techniques that individuals use to focus their attention. Many use it to heighten their awareness and maintain a level of peace in their life even during hectic times. There are many types of meditation. However, most meditation that people use in their daily life can be split up into concentrative meditation and mindfulness meditation.

Concentrative meditation is exactly what it sounds like: you use your focus and channel it. This can be on a repeated mantra, the way you’re breathing, or anything else with the goal of elevating your awareness and reaching a higher state.

Mindfulness meditation is a popular style of meditation used in a healthy lifestyle as well. This type of meditation is often used to deal with daily stress and can even be used therapeutically for problems such as depression. The general idea behind this type of meditation is to make yourself present in the moment and aware and accepting of what is going on to and around you. This is sometimes referred to as open-monitoring meditation.

What Can Meditation Do for You?

Meditation, as we’ve noted, has a variety of benefits. As such, there are a number of reasons that you might want to incorporate meditation into your daily routine. The most common reason that many people meditate is to handle stress. The reason that meditation is so helpful in the fight against stress is that it helps reduce the inflammation caused by cytokines, which are released when higher levels of the “stress hormone” cortisol are released. Many people also find that meditation helps them deal with anxiety and symptoms of anxiety disorders. Meditation can also be used to help you focus for longer periods of time and help stave off memory loss as you age. You can even use meditative techniques to lower your blood pressure and handle pain.

Why Should You Tie Coffee and Meditation Together?

Now that you understand what meditation is and why it’s important, what does it have to do with your morning coffee? What ties them together and why should they be tied together?

Caffeine Can Help You Focus

This point works a little differently depending on whether your morning coffee makes you jittery or focused. Either way, you can use coffee to your advantage.

If you are someone who finds yourself still half asleep until you have your morning coffee, you might find that meditating as soon as you wake up is difficult. After all, it can be hard to focus and be mindful if all you can think about is how nice it would be snuggled up in your bed. A cup of coffee can help you concentrate on your meditation just like it helps you focus on a busy morning at work.

On the other hand, if you find caffeine makes you amped up when you drink it, you might have trouble finding the tranquility you need to meditate. In these cases, a cup of coffee after you meditate might be perfect to help you transition from a meditative state into the beginning of your workday.

Creating a Daily Routine

When you first start meditating, you might feel hard-pressed to fit it into your schedule. Just like any other activity you do such as making your morning coffee or taking a shower, it’s much easier to find time to meditate if you put it into your daily routine. This is why linking your first cup of coffee and the time you take to meditate can be helpful. If you wake up knowing that you are going to brush your teeth, make your coffee, and then meditate, you are more likely to stick to it. Alternatively, if you keeping telling yourself throughout the day that you’ll get to meditation when you have the chance, you are likely to skip it.

A Better Mood

It’s hard to meditate when you’re in a bad mood. For many, the moments in the morning before that first cup of coffee hits their system are ones where they don’t want to talk to anyone and they aren’t in the best of moods. For these people, it can be advantageous to wait until you’re in a better, caffeinated mood to get the most out of time spent meditating.

All In All: A Good Morning

In the end, all these benefits add up to one thing: coffee and meditation can be the perfect way to kick off your morning. So try a little meditation with your morning coffee to start your day off right!

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