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How to Choose a Guided Meditation That Fits You

A person meditating cross-legged on a wooden deck at sunset, seen from behind with arms resting on the knees
Photo by Jared Rice (opens in a new tab) on Unsplash

Search for a guided meditation and you will find thousands of them, from three-minute recordings to hour-long sessions, led by teachers, therapists, monks and people with a nice voice and a microphone. Many people who decide meditation is not for them have simply started with a recording that did not suit them. Choosing well is mostly a matter of knowing what to look for. This guide walks through length, style, voice and source, and ends with a short checklist.

What a guided meditation is

A guided meditation is a session led by someone else, either in person or through a recording. Wikipedia describes it as meditation done under the guidance of a trained practitioner or teacher, or with the help of imagery, music and other techniques. It also points out that guided meditation is not one technique but several. One recording might lead you through your breath, another through each part of your body, another through a scene you picture in your mind.

That variety is the reason choosing matters. Two recordings can both be called guided meditations and feel nothing alike.

How to choose a guided meditation by length

Start shorter than you think you need. A short recording you finish is more useful than a long one you stop halfway through.

The free library from UCLA Mindful, the mindfulness program at UCLA Health, is a good example of the range. Its English recordings run from a three-minute body scan to a nineteen-minute set of complete meditation instructions, with breathing and loving-kindness practices in between. Psychologist Dianne Grande, writing in Psychology Today, notes that many options take ten minutes or less.

A good pattern is to begin with something around five minutes, then move up when that feels easy.

Choosing a guided meditation by style

Most guided meditations fall into a handful of styles. Knowing the names makes it much easier to find what you want.

  • Breath focus. The guide asks you to rest your attention on the breath and come back to it when your mind wanders. This is the most common starting point.
  • Body scan. Your attention moves slowly through the body, part by part. Lion's Roar notes that this kind of practice is not uncommon in Buddhist meditation, and it also appears widely in secular programs.
  • Loving-kindness. Known as metta, this is a traditional Buddhist practice. Lion's Roar describes offering good wishes such as happiness, peace and safety to someone you care about, then extending them to others and to yourself.
  • Guided imagery. The guide describes a place or a scene and invites you to picture it.
  • Sound and music. Some sessions use a bell, a soft background track or long stretches of music between instructions.

If one style feels awkward, try another before deciding guided meditation is not for you.

A woman meditating cross-legged on a blanket on the beach, facing the waves
Photo by Vadim Berg (opens in a new tab) on Unsplash

Voice, pacing and how much talking

This part is personal, and it matters more than people expect. A voice that one listener finds calm, another finds sleepy or grating. Notice the speed of speech, the accent, and whether the guide fills every moment or leaves long pauses.

Some recordings talk almost all the way through. Others give a short instruction and then leave you in silence for a few minutes. Beginners often like more guidance at first and prefer more quiet later. Listen to the first minute or two before you commit to a full session.

Religious, secular or somewhere in between

Grande notes that most forms of meditation are not tied to any religion, and many guided meditations are fully secular. Others come straight from living traditions. Loving-kindness comes from Buddhism, and many meditations draw on yoga or other practices.

Both are fine. A thoughtful guide will tell you where a practice comes from, and will not dress up a religious practice as something it is not. If a recording borrows from a tradition, it is respectful to learn a little about that tradition too.

Where to find guided meditations

You do not have to pay to try guided meditation. University programs such as UCLA Mindful offer free recordings, in English and in many other languages, for personal, noncommercial use. Public libraries, local meditation groups and community centers are also worth a look, and an in-person teacher can answer questions a recording cannot.

A quick checklist for choosing a guided meditation

  • Length. Start with five to ten minutes.
  • Style. Pick one style, such as breath or body scan, and stay with it for a few days.
  • Voice. Listen to the first minute before you decide.
  • Talk and quiet. Notice whether you want more guidance or more silence.
  • Source. Check who made it and whether they name the tradition it comes from.
  • Patience. Give a recording three tries before you switch.

A last word

There is no single best guided meditation, only the one that suits you right now. Choose something short, give it a fair try, and change it when it stops fitting. If you are wondering whether you need a guide at all, Guided vs Unguided Meditation: Which One Suits You compares the two approaches. And if you like to note how each session went, What to Write After You Meditate: A Simple Meditation Journal Method with Example Entries offers a simple format.

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