We're all busier than ever, and we're all stressed out.  Meditation is a great way to help deal with life's stresses.  But how can the average busy person learn to meditate?  Doesn't it take years of practice and study under a guru?  Not at all. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Short Meditations shows you how to lower your stress levels, lighten up, start enjoying life, and be healthier with a wide variety of short meditations that take 15 minutes or less.

The idea of meditation can seem foreign and even scary to the average person.  Isn't it some sort of mystical process where you learn to detach yourself from the world? No!  There is nothing inherently mystical or religious in the practice of meditation.  At its heart, it is nothing more than learning how to control your brain and your thoughts.  Most of us have habitual thought patterns that run whether we want them to or not.  Quite often, these patterns are negative and self-defeating.  They can lead to negative and self-defeating behaviors.  Meditation provides a way to short-circuit these patterns.

Don't let the "Complete Idiot's" tag fool you.  This is an outstanding and thorough introduction to the varieties of meditation.  It is also highly recommended for experienced meditators.  It gives a concise background to the science behind meditation, then provides a series of increasingly deep meditation exercises.  A wonderful feature of the book is the number and variety of the meditation exercises it provides.  Everyone is different and has different needs.  The wide range of the exercises ensures that anyone who reads this book will find a meditation that meets their needs.  Some of the meditations will resonate with you, and some will not.

This can be a hard book to "read" in the traditional sense.  Once you find an exercise that really works for you, you may feel inclined to stop and work with that exercise for a while.  That's what I found happening to me again and again.  I have a feeling that this is how the book should be used.  Its intent is to get the reader to start meditating in a way that works for them.

If you're curious about meditation and want to see what it is like, this is the book to start with.  If you've meditated in the past and want to get back in to the practice, this is the book to read.  If you are currently meditating and want to broaden your range of practices, this is the book to read.