Mindfulness & Meditation 40 Day Challenge

Challenge Overview

Challenge yourself to meditate daily for 40 days straight. Forty days of practice is an ancient tradition in yoga that is used to establish a new habit in your life and integrate the effects of the practice into your mind and body. Modern scientific research backs up this ancient wisdom, showing that 40 days is long enough to rewire the brain and improve our quality of life (Yang et al 2019 Sci Reports). Importantly, we don’t have to meditate for long each day to make significant changes — just 13 min a day of a guided meditation recording is enough to improve memory, mood, emotional regulation and attention in complete beginners (Basso et al 2019 Behav Brain Res).

So, with the backing of ancient yogic traditions and Western biomedical science, you can feel assured that the program offered here — 6 weeks or 42 days (to be precise) of 15-min guided meditation recordings and daily mindfulness practices — has the potential to create beneficial changes in your brain and body to improve mood, memory, concentration, emotional regulation and immune function, and decrease stress and anxiety.

And there’s no need to stop at 40 days — you won’t want to stop when you discover the things you can do with your mind you never thought possible. You’ll have learned and integrated 6 powerfully transformative meditation practices and will know which is the best one for you. And you’ll have developed a solid, healthy habit of daily meditation. So there’ll be nothing stopping you from continuing to rewire your brain and transform your mind to have brilliant clarity, complete stillness and laser focus for hours at a time without tiring.

Challenge Outline

Week 1

Meditation | Awakening to sensation | Progressive Muscle Relaxation + Body Scanning

Mindfulness | Grounding

Week 2

Meditation | Awareness of energy | Om Chanting

Mindfulness | Connecting mind & body

Week 3

Meditation | Increasing concentration | Japa meditation

Mindfulness | Awareness of mindset

Week 4

Meditation | Opening the heart | Adi Shakti meditation

Mindfulness | Opening to beauty

Week 5

Meditation | Integration | Chakra meditation

Mindfulness | Awareness of breath

Week 6

Meditation | Awakening inner healing | Healing Light meditation

Mindfulness | Connecting to self

Weekly Content

Each week there’s a short introduction and video clip about the week’s meditation practice and an audio recording of the meditation practice itself (most are 15 min long). Three extension options are offered for each meditation practice so you can stretch yourself if you wish. There’s a mindfulness theme each week and a new mindfulness practice each day. By the end of the Challenge, you’ll have experienced over 30 mindfulness practices, many of which could last you months or years, if you choose to continue them, and change your life.

Although the Challenge is designed to be 6 weeks long, it’s entirely self-paced and can be adapted to suit your current circumstances and needs. All the material is accessible to you upfront, giving you the freedom to nagivate it in the way that suits you best at this time.

Program Handouts

The weekly mindfulness practices are downloadable so you can put them on the fridge or wall and don’t have to go online every morning just to check the day’s practice.