Do You Have to Meditate at The Same Time Every Day?

Meditating at the same time every day is advantageous since it helps you build a routine and it makes it more difficult to abandon the habit of meditation, it’s similar to creating a sleeping schedule you can stick to. Your body will thank you for the long haul.

That said, not everyone finds success meditating at the same time every day. But there are some reasons you should consider meditating at a particular hour of the day. 

There really isn’t a right or wrong. For some, the morning is ideal and many swear by morning meditations being superior to meditating any other time. 

Don’t buy into that, find out what works for your situation. Most advice on meditation is generalized, but there’s a pretty good chance where replicating what works for others may work for you. 

Sticking to a Routine

It’s not so much about meditating at the same time every day as it is about forming the habit. A major plus that comes with doing the practice on a particular hour of the day is that you build structure. 

If you’re an organized individual, you’re more likely to benefit from a routine-based meditation, since you’d be matching your strengths, and finding the discipline to practice daily will become easier. 

Sometimes, this is all it takes to have someone go from an irregular meditator that gives up after a few tries, to someone who, despite being unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel, sticks with meditation long enough, makes it a habit and sees the effects come to fruition, usually over the span of months or years. 

Being In a Meditative State By Default

If we look at animals, they are fortunate enough to always be in a meditative state, more or less. 

While it usually takes someone years to master meditation to the degree where their mind is in a perpetually calm, meditative state, one way to significantly shortcut the process for some is by meditating at a particular time every day. 

If you think about it, your mind is most likely already on autopilot, and this becomes more noticeable if you take a step back and closely examine the decisions you make in your day-to-day life. 

For instance, if you’re not used to meditating or being in the present moment, chances are you’re not mindful about brushing your teeth, but you still do it anyway without “feeling” like doing it, and it’s likely something you do at the same time every day. 

Well, turns out that the same autopilot process can be applied to meditation. I often talk about breaking out of the robotic repetitive pattern of letting life happen to us by not having our focus on the present or past. 

These are the places the mind gravitates to, to avoid the discomfort of confronting the present. 

But in a quest to break out of this pattern, there are roadblocks. It’s hard to just “be present” if you’ve been conditioned not to throughout the majority of your life. 

And while meditation does make you more mindful about the present and your surroundings, even allowing you to shift your focus to the present and make living in the present a default operating mode, for some, it’s even when they meditate they still revert back to their old habits of not being present. Even if it gets better over time. 

By choosing one time you meditate every day, it becomes easier to be in a meditative state by default, since you’re taking advantage of the fact that you’re already operating on autopilot, and using it in your favor to establish the habit of meditation, which would ironically help you break out of that pattern. 

At the end of the day, meditation becomes another good habit you have in your day-to-day life that doesn’t get more complicated than brushing your teeth. The discipline that’s already in you feeds off itself and meditating for the long-term becomes easy. 

There are so many technical intricacies that go into making meditation a long-term habit for most, but to keep things simple, many would just need a few basic tweaks to make meditation work for them, without giving up. 

Meditating vs. Sleeping: At The Same Time

The perfect cocktail would be to have a routine sleeping schedule as well as a meditation schedule. 

Some even combine meditation with sleeping, which I wouldn’t recommend since there’s a risk for the mind to confuse the two and start associating sleep with meditation, thereby, making you see meditation as a means to fall asleep. 

However, the more proper sleep you get, the easier it will be for you to find the discipline to meditate. If you sleep at the same time every day, you’re more likely to have an easier time both falling asleep and having that sleep be of higher quality. 

Having too little sleep and trying to meditate is not ideal, as your energy is more likely to be depleted quickly when you need it to focus when meditating. That’s not to say you can’t meditate without proper sleep but from personal experience, I find it harder to do. 

Consistency

One of the best things you can do to get to know yourself and master yourself to the point where you become a high achiever is by building consistency with meditation. 

If nothing has worked up until this point when trying to make your meditation stick, consider trying meditation at a particular time you choose every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the morning, evening, or night. 

But stick to that time for an entire month, and if you don’t notice any difference, you can revert to intermittent meditations. Most don’t have a problem with meditation, most just have a problem with making it consistent. It’s easy for pretty much anyone to meditate one day for 20 minutes. 

Cons of Meditating At The Same Time

There are those who consider themselves less organized, but that still manages to make meditation work for them. Even if you’re organized, it doesn’t guarantee that meditating at the same time will do the trick for you.

Meditating at different times is totally fine, and is the only way for some. Not sticking to a schedule does give a sense of freedom, but it’s also easy to find yourself skipping days of meditation or slacking. Meditating can be easy to do, but it can also be very easy to forget to do. 

One downside to meditating at the same time every day is that some will associate meditation with a chore, and how you see meditation can be a determining factor in whether you stick with the practice or not. 

Final Thoughts

Most should experiment with whether meditating at the same time works for them or not since we can’t compare ourselves to others when it comes to meditation. 

If something works for someone else, doesn’t mean it will for you, but if it does, that’s great. However, one of the key lessons we learn with meditation is to not be dependent on the end result. 

Many want to see the light at the end of the tunnel and know that meditation is working, and for many, one of the fastest ways to tell is to become present and see how you do things differently on your day-to-day and observe the outputs. For others, their way of knowing is different.