Hi, I am very glad that you asked — because it made me rethink that idea again. Of course, the minimum number of minutes is arbitrary, but I felt that it was needed to be set in a guide like this one, since it is aimed at making it as easy as possible for the reader to start meditating — without having to ponder on questions like “how long do I meditate.”

The reason why I went with 15 minutes:

a) because I started meditating with this amount of time myself.
b) I feel that it is sufficient time for a beginning meditator to be able to detach from the tasks of the day, get lost in thoughts and be able to “find” themselves again at least a few times. 5 or even 10 minutes don’t seem enough to accomplish this, at least not to me. Then I didn’t want to set this time any higher, because when writing this guide I had in mind a person who never meditated before — so I thought that 15 minutes is already enough of a challenge.

Having said this, in case 15 minutes doesn’t seem right for you — I invite you to come back to the last paragraph section of the article and be guided by it:

“ trust yourself in knowing what’s best for you. Nobody — not even the wisest of teachers — will ever be able to feel how it is to be in your skin. Only you can feel that.”

All the best and happy meditating! :)