HOW LONG DOES ALL THIS TAKE?

Before you dismiss all this as too hard, let me give you an assurance. After a month or so  of the Calm Technique, you will want to make it a lifetime commitment. Every morning and evening for the rest of your life won't seem like a burden, it will seem like a pleasure. You will actually look forward to those rare moments of peace and harmony (relaxation) that modern life seldom offers. And the more you listen to the subtle things your body tells you, the more you will appreciate how important the Calm Technique really is to your life. Ultimately, as the runner becomes addicted to his running, so the meditator becomes addicted to meditation.

How long does it take? A day? A lifetime?

The ideal time to be spent with the Calm Technique each day is fifteen to thirty minutes, morning and evening. Most people seem to spend twenty minutes each time, but you should decide on a time for yourself. After a week, you will know what is the ideal time for you. Then you should standardize. If it's twenty minutes, it should be twenty minutes every time. Because even though the Calm Technique involves no heavy discipline, it is a discipline in itself. So regularity, diligence and determination will all bring their own rewards. Please note that the time you spend on the Calm Technique should be governed by how you react to it and what you want to get out of it, and not by what your schedule expects.

To begin with, let's set the standard time for the Calm Technique at twenty minutes. (Later you can vary it a little in either direction to suit the way you feel.) The times of day you should devote to the Calm Technique are once in the morning and once at evening, preferably before meals and as early as your schedule will allow. As the Calm Technique will have you feeling more alert and wide-awake at the end than when you began, it's preferable that your evening meditation takes place a couple of hours before bedtime (although experience will tell whether this is the case with you).

Twenty minutes twice a day will probably seem like quite s chunk out of your day. It is. The compensations are that you will feel much better for having done it in the morning, and you'll sleep better for having done it at night. You'll find that trading half an hour's sleep for half an hour with the Calm Technique is well worth it. Besides, a relaxed person sleeps better and gets by on significantly less sleep than a stressed person.

If the Calm Technique had to be performed without fail for twenty minutes twice a day, then it would be a stressbuilder in itself. The ideal is twenty minutes twice a day. But that's all it is, an ideal.

I should emphasize one last time the similarity between the Calm Technique and an exercise programme. You will notice the effect in the first few days. After that, the effects will be gradual anf barely discernible, but in the long run, you'll revel in the accumulated benefits of this tuning, training and exercise, and you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

Even if you have doubts, I sincerely urge you to persist with the Calm Technique for at least two months. After that, you won't need the urging - the benefits will be so obvious to you, you'll never want to stop.

But above all, learn to enjoy anf appreciate the time you spend on the Calm Technique for its own sake. Then the long-term benefits to your health and psyche will look after themselves.

-- This excerpt was taken from The Calm Technique by Paul Wilson