As you probably know too well, real life can interfere with creating time for oneself or even the inclination to meditate, and for me, eventually, it fell by the wayside.

Just thinking about the zillion tasks I juggle every day makes my head spin: Managing a Functional Medicine clinic at a major hospital, seeing patients at my own practice, writing books, and attending to tons of other work obligations. I balance these duties with regular exercise, eating healthy and oh yeah, sleeping 8 to 10 hours every night.

So OK, no jury in the world would convict me when I say I don’t have time to meditate, right?

At the same time, I’ve been “prescribing” meditation to patients and readers for decades, so I always felt slightly uncomfortable recommending it when I didn’t practice meditation myself.

Among its many benefits, meditation reduces stress. Think of your brain as a computer, simultaneously keeping many windows and programs going.

Meditation helps you close out the unnecessary windows so you can focus on what’s essential. When you do less with more, you enjoy life more and perform at a higher level.