I have been meditating for more than 5 years now. In that journey - I’ve experimented with several techniques - guided meditation (using apps such as Headspace, Calm and Aware), and unguided meditations (Vipassana, ambient sounds, etc). However, I just wasn’t able to find a rhythm and keep up the habit. That’s when I discovered Transcendental Meditation.
It’s been close to 2 years since I got into TM and it’s the longest meditation technique that has stuck with me. I still remember my first week experimenting with TM and feeling that sense of innate calm and focus. It’s been my go-to technique to get a recharge.
I wanted to share my personal experience and knowledge of T.M. in the hopes that you try it for yourself and experience a technique that may be as beneficial to you as it has been to me.
In short - Transcendental Meditation is an unguided meditation practice that is performed by silently repeating a mantra for 15-20 minutes, twice a day.
When people search for TM, they often bump into marketing copy from the official TM organization alongside skeptical Reddit threads. Here’s the reality I’ve observed: the technique itself is simple, portable, and rooted in the Vedic tradition. In the United States, learning directly from a certified TM teacher currently costs roughly $500-$1000. I personally don’t think you need to pay for a course to get started, but it’s helpful to understand how the official approach frames things.
They emphasize ease, twice-daily repetition, and a personalized mantra. The personalization part is what trips up most of us who want to experiment on our own, which is why I keep notes on traditional mantra families below.
The TM meditation technique was created by an Indian Yogi - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
His goal with TM was for practitioners to achieve a “fourth major state of consciousness”. This fourth state is referred to in Maharishi’s Vedic psychology as transcendental consciousness (Maharishi, 1969; Orme-Johnson,1988) because it is said to transcend or be discontinuous with the three ordinary states of waking, dreaming, and sleep, as typically described conceptually and physiologically.
The word mantra, derived from Sanskrit, translates to ‘mind vehicle’ (man = mind, tra = vehicle). In the TM technique, mantras are meaningless sounds. Their value lies in the quality of the sound rather than any special meaning.
Plain and simple - Transcendental Meditation is the easiest form of meditation.
A lot of beginners of meditation are advised to do guided meditation as their intro to meditation. Personally, I tried numerous apps (Headspace, Aware, Ten Percent, etc) and while they’re helpful to understand the practice - they’re not as good as having control of your meditation at your own pace. TM requires no concentration, no control of the mind, and no mental monitoring. These aspects of TM make it perfect for beginners.
Moreover, TM can be performed anywhere - while you’re waiting in line, at busy airports, etc. All you need is your mantra. No phone, no apps, no internet.
Lastly, there’s a lot of research that supports that TM greatly helps in reducing stress and anxiety. You can read more about the research on TM’s benefits here. For a more comprehensive look at managing emotional health for longevity, see my notes on Outlive by Peter Attia.
Yes, Transcendental Meditation can reduce stress and anxiety, especially when you stay faithful to the classic 20-minutes-twice-a-day rhythm. A few studies that helped me feel confident about that:
My personal rule of thumb from all this reading: keep showing up for both sessions each day for at least a few weeks. Two weeks is usually enough to notice calmer afternoons; a full three months builds a cushion you can actually feel during hectic stretches. TM also seems safe – the trials above and others report no serious side effects – and younger kids can do it too, though the gains are smaller if they aren’t that anxious to begin with. Most importantly, the results beat simply sitting with eyes closed, so the mantra work matters.
The TM technique was popularized worldwide through expensive courses with teachers who guide you in choosing a mantra for your meditation.
As Maharishi Mahesh Yogi himself wrote in his 1955 book “Beacon of Light of the Himalayas”: “Any word can be taken…we find that any sound can serve our purpose of training the mind to become sharp.” While traditional TM courses may charge significant fees, the core principle is that the mantra should be a suitable sound that helps quiet the mind.
In my opinion, you don’t need to sign up for a course to get a mantra. You can start with any meaningless word that comes to mind, one that you feel sounds pleasant. Remember, the effectiveness of the mantra comes from its use in the TM technique, not its specific meaning or origin. Here are a few guidelines to consider when choosing a mantra:
Below is the reference table I keep in my notes. It mirrors the age-based groupings you might receive from an official TM teacher and keeps things simple when you’re choosing a sound on your own.
Age range | Common mantra sound |
---|---|
0-11 | eng |
12-13 | em |
14-15 | enga |
16-17 | ema |
18-19 | ieng |
20-21 | iem |
22-23 | ienga |
24-25 | iema |
26-29 | shiring |
30-34 | shirim |
35-39 | hiring |
40-44 | hirim |
45-49 | kiring |
50-54 | kirim |
55-59 | sham |
60+ | shama |
Note: These sounds are phonetic English approximations. If a mantra triggers memories or emotions, swap it out. Ease always beats dogma.
As mentioned earlier, the practice of T.M. requires two 15-20 minute periods per day.
For the first practice, you should ideally plan to do this right after you wake-up in the morning. Resist that cup of coffee when you wake up and perform your meditation before. You want to get into your meditation practice with a calm state of mind. Ideally, you should also be on an empty stomach.
For the second practice in the day, choose anytime between noon and 7 p.m. Personally, I’ve used T.M. as an energy boost in my afternoons. Its benefits are as good as a power nap if not better. Again you don’t want to do the practice right after lunch. Let your food digest and choose a time that works best for you. With the busy schedules we all have it can be hard to stick to the afternoon habit. What helps me is blocking time on my calendar and moving it around meetings scheduled.
Since this is an unguided meditation where you’re not using an app on your phone - how do you know when your meditation practice is over? Of course, there is the setting of an alarm on your phone for 20 minutes. However, hearing an alarm at the end of your T.M. practice can often be jarring to the mind and body. What you want to do is train your internal clock as you practice more and more. Start with an alarm clock, perhaps even check the time in the middle of the practice if you want to, but slowly your internal clock will get trained to know when your 15-20 minutes are up.
Now, let’s get into doing the practice. I’ll run through a step-by-step procedure:
The thinking behind most people is that their mind needs to be empty during meditation - that’s how they know they’re doing their meditation ‘right’. However, try to think of meditation as a mental exercise for your brain. Your brain will have random thoughts come in during your practice, but train it to get back to your mantra. The more you train it, the better your ability to focus becomes.
Remember you don’t need to be perfect with this practice. Just doing it every day is what matters. As you get deep into the practice of T.M., you stop needing an alarm for when 15 minutes is up.
If you’re new to the meditation practice, you will realize that often your mind gets flooded with many thoughts during meditation practice. Don’t worry about them. Think of this as a cleaning-of-the-mind practice.
Sometimes it might feel that you have gotten carried away with a thought train for a long time- that’s completely okay. Remember, your goal is not to have a perfectly clear state. Your goal is simply to get back to the mantra as often as you can.
It’s important to note that if you experience any discomfort during meditation, it’s okay to stop. Only continue because you want to, not because you feel you have to. Like any practice, TM should be approached with gentleness and patience.
The following are the key mistakes to avoid as you begin your T.M. practice -
As mentioned previously, choose a mantra that doesn’t have a meaning. But say - you selected one and noticed in your early practices that the mantra is triggering other thoughts. In that case, choose another one. You’ll know you have the right one when your thoughts are being triggered not by the mantra.
In our busy schedules, we often don’t get time to contemplate in the day. When I started the practice, I used my meditation practice time as a time to think about ideas or things that were bothering me. I realized soon that I wasn’t going anywhere with my goal to attain a focused and calm mind.
Don’t confuse meditation time with contemplation time. Take out additional minutes in your day to go out for a walk or however else you think works best to introspect and reflect on your day. It will be worth the time you spend on this and your meditation practice.
This is the most common and basic mistake that I hear from meditation beginners. “I’m not very good at meditation because my mind is always too busy.”
Well, reemphasizing my point earlier - your goal is not to attain some level of bliss. The harder you try to attain this, the further away you’ll get from it.
So give yourself room to be sloppy with your practice. Be nice to yourself. And realize that this practice is all about getting back to the mantra.
Short answer: yes, with patience. I highly recommend resources like Emily Fletcher’s Stress Less, Accomplish More to build the habit. If you go the self-guided route, be extra gentle during the first few weeks – there’s no coach to reassure you that wandering thoughts are part of the deal.
Match your age range in the table, say the sound softly in your mind, and see how your body responds. If you tense up or the sound reminds you of something specific, switch to the next option in the list. I cycled through three mantras before landing on one that felt effortless.
I noticed a calmer afternoon about five days in, and my sleep improved within two weeks. The deeper benefits – less reactivity when work got hectic – showed up after sticking with it for three months. Journaling tiny wins helped me see progress when my brain insisted nothing was happening.
TM falls under the larger Vedic meditation umbrella. The main difference is the ceremonial introduction and the specific mantra groupings. Breath work is a separate practice; lately I’ve been doing short box-breathing sessions before TM when I’m extra wired. If you’re curious about longer experiments, my one-hour meditation practice write-up covers how I stacked different techniques.
For the first year, I treated my afternoon session like a non-negotiable meeting on my calendar. On heavy meeting days, I blocked 12 minutes instead of 20. Consistency matters more than perfection – missing an afternoon isn’t failure, it’s feedback to protect the next slot earlier.
You can follow me on Twitter as I continue to document my journey.