Some of the research and commentary I read about exercise and about meditation focuses on duration: usually something along the line of "how much have these people practiced meditation" or "how many years have they been running?" To me, this measure, equal to the total, is misguided. I think a better total is frequency.
It seems better to me to ask "What % of days does exercise or meditation get carried out?" Consider the activities that keep us alive: breathing and eating/drinking. We don't approach the topics with the questions
For how many years has this person been breathing?
How many years has this person practiced eating?
Time passes, you know. We are much more interested in questions like this:
Is the person breathing now?
How long has it been since his last breath?
How long has it been since he ate?
Is he eating too frequently?
If we want to get better at understanding and appreciating ourselves and each other, it will help, I think, if we focus on people as ongoing processes, not permanent states. We are alive, not rocks, although even rocks have beginnings and histories and endings.
A good model of another approach is "The Quieting Reflex" by Charles Stroebel, MD Aside of anything to do with meditation, Stroebel advises taking 6 seconds at a time to deeply relax. He advises grabbing 6 seconds here and there, when it is convenient and when you think of it. For me and my experimentation with meditation and reading about breath and yoga and conscious effort and concentration, I am getting so that I am more conscious of each involuntary breath I take. So, I am getting more aware of each breath. I don't want to overdo it but I feel that it is helpful in keeping me aware of being alive, of the beauty and reality of life and of its essential materiality. I remember that I am a living creature and have a material body. I also remember C.S. Lewis' comment: "Of course God loves material. He made so much of it."
