Grounding for concentration: 7 minutes, at your desk

About this practice

For the times at your desk when concentration takes up more room than you would like — 7 minutes, grounding. A guided session of about 7 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: concentration

Concentration fails for two reasons: the task is uninteresting, or the body is too activated to hold anything steady. The second one is fixable in minutes.

It tends to show up as:

• Attention sliding off within seconds
• Jumping between tabs
• Feeling physically unable to sit still

Lowering arousal raises the ceiling of what attention can hold. Practice first, then the task.

Doing this at your desk

• Feet flat, back supported, screen away from your eyeline
• You can do this with your eyes open if the office makes closing them awkward
• Unclench the jaw and drop the shoulders first, before anything else

Nobody needs to know you are doing it. Keep it invisible if that makes it possible.

How grounding works

Grounding brings attention to physical contact and the immediate environment. It works on the principle that the body cannot be somewhere else, so contact with the surface you are on is always available as an anchor.

• Feel the contact points — feet, seat, back — and let them take your weight
• Use the senses deliberately: what you can see, hear, touch
• Return to solidity whenever attention drifts

What happens, minute by minute

1. 0:00Put a hand on your chest for a moment if that feels steadying. Or don't. Both are allowed.
2. 0:16If your mind has gone somewhere else, the floor under you has not moved. Start from there.
3. 0:31For the next few minutes, the only job is to notice what's already happening.
4. 0:45If it helps, imagine your attention is a torch beam. Right now it's wide and soft.
5. 1:00Let the exhale empty you a little more than usual, but not to the point of strain.
6. 1:15Let the breath get soft, the way it goes when someone is reading beside you.
7. 1:29Notice your breathing, without changing it.
8. 1:39Notice the backs of your knees, which you feel more than you think.
9. 1:52Feel the outline of yourself, from the top of your head to your heels.
10. 2:06You do not have to solve the urge to check something else in these few minutes. Your only job is to keep breathing while it is here.
11. 2:26You do not have to win against the difficulty of staying with one thing. You only have to breathe until the next moment arrives.
12. 2:45Feel your knees. They're just hinges, but they've worked hard.
13. 2:57Keep following the air.
14. 3:06Follow one full breath from the moment it starts to the moment it ends.
15. 3:20Notice if you've been frowning at your own thoughts.
16. 3:31Let's pause. Just the breathing for a while.
17. 3:42The floor is holding you right now. You do not have to hold yourself up.
18. 3:56Your mind will leave about a hundred times. Come back about a hundred times.
19. 4:10Count down from ten, one number per exhale.
20. 4:21I'll stop for a moment. Take the pause at your own speed.
21. 4:34Imagine softening the edges of the attention that keeps sliding off. Not erasing it, just letting the sharp parts go a degree softer.
22. 4:52Nothing about the urge to check something else has to be explained or justified in this room.
23. 5:07Let your breathing find the rhythm it uses when you're almost asleep.
24. 5:20Notice the moment you realise you've drifted. That moment is the whole skill.
25. 5:33If you're bored, stay with the boredom for a moment. It's usually thinner than it looks.
26. 5:48No words for a moment. Only the next breath.
27. 5:59Feel the contact points — feet, seat, back. That contact is the whole anchor.
28. 6:13Come back to your body first, and the rest of the day second.
29. 6:26When you stand up, do it slowly. There's no reason to hurry.

Questions people ask

Meditation is a practice, not a treatment. If you are dealing with ongoing distress, please also reach out to a professional.