Jay Shetty Is Here to Help You Meditate Like a Celeb in Just 7 Minutes

Onetime monk, uber-popular motivation coach and officiant of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez's second wedding, Jay Shetty is also the Chief Purpose Officer of Calm.

By Tierney Bricker, Alli Rosenbloom Aug 21, 2022 2:10 PMTags
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To keep calm, might we suggest heading to a very obvious source: The Calm app.

Now, before you carry on about how you have tried meditation before and it just doesn't work for you and you don't have the time to do it, what if we said you could be guided by one of the wellness industry's most respected coaches and that you would be finished in the same amount of time it takes to make your coffee?

Jay Shetty, a former monk who became a viral motivational speaker, New York Times bestselling author, current host of the most popular health podcast, and the officiant of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez's second wedding, has another title to his impressive resume: The Chief Purpose Officer of Calm, which is the home of his new daily content series.

"The Daily Jay has been created to help anyone and everyone start a new meditation and mindfulness habit, anywhere at any time," Shetty told E! News. "It's seven minutes a day that you can do while you're on the move, while you're folding your laundry, while you're making your bed, while you're doing the dishes."

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By making it accessible and attainable, Shetty is hoping to take meditation to the masses, one day at a time, providing practical advice on how to be more mindful. And if the idea of complete silence is intimidating for you, Shetty is here to dispel a major myth about the practice.

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"One of the biggest misconceptions about meditation is that your mind has to be quiet," the On Purpose podcast host said. "It's really about the mind becoming more still and clear. And so I think often we're looking for nothingness or emptiness, and really, instead of trying to make our mind empty, we're trying to look for clarity."

Clearing your mind takes work, but that doesn't mean it has to feel like work, with Shetty explaining it is about "trying to selectively bring our awareness and attention to something that brings us joy, something that creates stillness, something that brings about peace. It could be a sound, it could be some music that we love."

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The goal, he continued, is not complete nothingness. "We're not trying to force our minds to be still, that wouldn't make sense," the 34-year-old explained. "We're trying to let things settle. We're trying to almost let things just come down and calm themselves."

Of course, mindfulness is about more than meditation, with Shetty offering three tips for people to use throughout their day to become more present: A physically tangible activity, breath work and a visualization tactic.

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The first is a favorite of Shetty's that he was taught while pursuing life as a monk in India called the 5-4-3-2-1 technique.

"It's five things you can see, so look around in the space that you are and what are the five things I can see? Maybe the sky, maybe a tree, maybe the wall, whatever else it may be," he explained. "Then what are four things you can touch… notice the textures, notice the coolness. Just take a moment to become physically acclimatized to that space. And then it's what are the three things I can hear? So take a moment to just be silent and listen to what are the three things you can hear, maybe white noise, there might be a bird, there may be slight conversation in the distance."

Finally, Shetty continued, "What are the two things you can smell. And then what's the one thing you can taste? And often what we're trying to do is trying to shut out the noises around us, but that only makes them compete for our attention more. Whereas when we allow ourselves to just go through them, 5-4-3-2-1, we can now actually move forward with our day."

When it comes to breathwork, Shetty used the all-too-relatable example of being unable to fall asleep at night because your mind is racing. Yes, there is a simple solution: Less than 10 breaths.

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"When you're in that position where your body's ahead of your mind or your mind is ahead of your body, breathe in and out for the same amount of time," Shetty offered. "So breathe in for a count of four and breathe out for a count of four. When you breathe in and out for the same amount of time, it's aligning your body and your mind…and that brings you back into sync."

Finally, Shetty recommended a visualization technique to use when you are about to do something you are scared of, whether it is jumping out of a plane, giving a presentation or racing a car 200 miles per hour like Lewis Hamilton: Focus on the journey, not the outcome.

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"Visualize yourself doing the actual process step by step to the best of your ability, as opposed to the best case because the best case is based on mastering the process," Shetty advised. "You're visualizing yourself doing the actual process and the practice so that when you actually do it, you feel more comfortable. It's almost like a dress rehearsal in your head."

All of these techniques are ones that Shetty has shared with friends like Gwyneth Paltrow, Shawn Mendes, Joe Jonas and Jennifer Aniston—and their squads.

He's spoken on stage at Paltrow's Goop events and attended one of the Sunday salons Aniston hosted to educate herself and her, um, friends on various topics.

"I was grateful enough to be one of those speakers and I was asked to come in and speak about purpose," Shetty said. "And so that was the lens that we went down and what I spoke about at her home and it was just amazing to see how she was opening up her home and her friends to wanting to dive into deeper topics and deeper ideas. That was really special."

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Jonas connected with the Think Like a Monk author to start a weekly meditation community over Zoom during the pandemic, which is still happening more than 75 weeks later.

"Joe and I really deeply connected and became friends over time and so he wanted this community for his friends, his band, his team," Shetty explained. "And so we've been running that and it's been absolutely beautiful and such an honor."

With Mendes, Shetty said he works with the "Wonder" singer to focus on "purpose and discovering how that aligned with the work he's doing through his music."

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Purpose, however, isn't just for celebrities, with Shetty sharing his definition of the word: "Passion plus strength plus service."

"That doing what they're phenomenal at and what they're talented at," he expanded, "when that can be used to actually improve people's lives, change people's lives, impact people around them and impact communities."

As for Shetty's purpose—that would be spreading calm, one day at a time.

The Daily Jay is released daily on the Calm app.