Eli Susman makes a case for beginning meditation with a session short enough to repeat. His Greater Good essay reviews research that challenges the assumption that sitting longer reliably produces greater psychological benefits.
One experiment assigned 71 adults with limited meditation experience to four sessions over two weeks. They practised for five minutes, practised for 20 minutes, or listened to an audiobook. All sessions lasted 25 minutes, with audiobook listening filling the remaining time. Both meditation groups improved relative to the control group. The five-minute group showed greater gains in mindful awareness and stress reduction than the 20-minute group. That is a finding about beginners over a short period, with little teacher contact.
Other comparisons complicate any universal prescription. In a study of 77 college students, 10-minute and 20-minute daily assignments produced similar changes in stress and mindful awareness after two weeks. The longer assignment brought a somewhat greater gain in self-compassion. But it also proved harder to sustain: participants assigned twice as much daily practice accumulated only 103 minutes, against 82 in the shorter group.
Susman also cites a review of 203 randomized trials involving 15,971 participants. Its published abstract reports no evidence that larger doses predicted better psychological outcomes, while some measures of contact, intensity and use predicted greater mindfulness. A failure to find a dose advantage cannot establish that every duration works equally well for every person.
Consistency is the essay’s larger recommendation. Evidence from 10,409 meditation-app users associated frequent practice with better emotional outcomes, but people chose their own routines. That association cannot show that frequency itself caused the gains. The controlled comparisons make a narrower case: a manageable session can be a reasonable starting point.
The article is adapted from Susman’s book Micropractice and includes a related webinar promotion. Its studies leave long-term effects and harms unresolved; feeling worse during practice is a reason to reassess, not an endurance test to pass. The evidence gives beginners permission to start small without promising that more practice, or meditation itself, will suit everyone.