JM: An early, small study suggests that mindfulness may help boost the immune system. By serving as a buffer against stress, mindfulness may also lower the risk of heart disease.

Remember: there’s no such thing as the perfect meditation. If we notice ourselves getting frustrated that the traffic in our mind is moving too fast or we’re wondering, “Why is this so hard?” we can give ourselves some compassion. Let out a big sigh to draw our focus back to the breath.

This idea is further supported by the fact that other stress-reducing therapies also seem to impact physical health, as well.

We know we’ll encounter the challenges we talked about here while we’re learning to meditate. When they pop up, we can return to this article to refresh ourselves on the basics and tips to get back on track.

Pair meditation with another daily activity, such as a 1-minute meditation as you wait for your morning coffee or tea to cool, or as you sit in the carpool lane.

Meditation trains us to notice the traffic without chasing or fighting it — just to let the thought come. Then gently shift our focus away from it and back onto our breath — to let the thought go.

The authors speculate that bringing mindful awareness to uncomfortable experiences helped people to approach situations that they would previously avoid, which fostered self-confidence and assertiveness.

For individuals who have experienced some sort of trauma, sitting and meditating can at times bring up recent or sometimes decades-old painful memories and experiences that they may not be prepared to confront. In a new study published in the journal PLoS ONE

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People might associate meditation with sitting in silence and stopping all of our thoughts and feelings to become calm. But that’s not really how the mind works, and neither self-knowledge does meditation. Rather than trying to stop our thoughts, we practice letting thoughts come and go.

A science-backed practice of nurturing positive feelings and resilience, we bring our awareness to all the good, nourishing and fulfilling elements of our life, big and small.

A helpful trick for dealing with thoughts and other distractions in meditation is to name them as they arise. It’s just like it sounds: When a thought comes into your mind, silently say “thought.” When a bit of emotion starts to stir, simply name it— “sadness,” for example.

In that spirit, here’s a rundown of questions that seem fairly settled, for the time being, and questions researchers are still exploring.

It’s not surprising that meditation would affect attention, since many practices focus on this very skill. And, in fact, researchers have found that meditation helps to counter habituation—the tendency to stop paying attention to new information in our environment. Other studies have found that mindfulness meditation can reduce mind-wandering and improve our ability to solve problems. There’s more good news: Studies have shown that improved attention seems to last up to five years after mindfulness training, again suggesting trait-like changes are possible.