I get out of bed at 5:05am, have a quick splash of water on my face and rinse with some mouthwash.

Then I jump on my bed and get comfortable, propping pillows up against the headboard.

I'll pop in earplugs, set my timer for anything from 10 to 15 minutes (usually 10, 12 or 15), turn the lamp by my bed off, and hit start on the timer by 5:10am.

Eyes closed. Sitting still. Sometimes hands resting on a pillow on my lap. Sometimes hands resting either side of me on the bed, palms facing up. Often I'll spend most of the time thinking about stuff, which is what you don't want to be doing, but I'm getting much better resisting the temptation to explore the thoughts. I now have more sessions where for most of it I was able to maintain the thoughtless state for the majority of the time. Having said that, I've had sessions where I did nothing but think the whole time and still felt good afterwards, purely, I assume, because of how relaxed I was.

The reason is that I've dabbled in meditation multiple times over the last 10 years and recall experiencing positive effects after a number of weeks, but I never maintained it long term no matter how strongly I pledged to. This time however, I will stick with it, never doing it any less than 4 times a week.