Increasingly, meditation is being practiced by people of all religious, spiritual, and secular leanings as a way to embrace the silence between thoughts and make room for the sacred.

Whatever your faith or mindset, meditating while you walk is a pleasant, easy way to expand your powers of concentration since the practice requires no accessories and no quiet room or special circumstance. You can focus on your breathing and count out your breaths while walking to work. Just break your steps down into slow, mindful movements and breathe. You may repeat a favourite inspirational verse or affirmation. Notice how the ground rises up to meet your feet. Instructs meditation teacher and author Charles MacInerney, “Walk with ‘soft vision,’ allowing the eyes to relax and focus upon nothing, while aware of everything. Once you have discovered your natural rhythm, lock into it, so that the rhythm of the walking sets the rhythm for the breath like a metronome.” Walking meditations are employed in various meditative traditions — Buddhist Vipassanna, for instance — as a way to give the body some relief from constant sitting.

If you’re constantly thinking about what you’d rather be doing — getting off work or eating dessert, your mind is starving for mindfulness. So what? Well, if you’re reading an instant message and talking on your cell phone while thinking about things you need to get at the store, you’re not doing any of these things fully and essentially, you’re missing out on your own life. The antidote? Mindfulness.