Meditation at My Desk: Finding Quiet in the Chaos

Woman in her office meditating

For the past seven days, my body and mind have been craving meditation and stretching. Every day, though, I came up with an excuse—too tired, too busy, not enough time. Yesterday, I finally tried to carve out a moment after work… but somehow ended up scrolling through TikTok videos about airbending and Qi Gong martial arts instead. All my mind wanted was stillness, yet I just kept feeding it more noise.

So this morning, I made a decision: no more excuses. I would meditate right at my desk. At 6 AM, the office is quiet—just two of us on the floor—and the coworkers I’m closest to don’t usually arrive until after 7. It felt like the perfect opportunity. I grabbed a blanket, put in my earbuds, queued up some soft vibrational music on Spotify, and set a ten-minute timer.

The moment I sat down, my mind kicked in: You’re facing the wrong direction. “Everyone knows you’re supposed to pray to the East,” it whispered. “Turn East or it won’t work. ”So, of course, I turned East.

I started breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth. Okay, I’ve got this, I thought. But then another thought popped up: Wait… how do I even breathe? Suddenly, I was hyper-aware of my own body. Is the air flowing through some kind of pipe? Why does my stomach collapse when I exhale? Where exactly is the air going?

For about three minutes, I sat there picturing this awkward process: air enters through my nose, pauses, fills my belly, and somehow pushes itself back out. That’s when a loud noise broke my focus—metallic clanging, like someone banging pots and pans. My coworker must have come in early.

For a split second, I felt irritation rising. If she knew I was meditating, she wouldn’t make all that noise. But then I caught myself. Chiriga, life isn’t about you. You can’t expect the office to stop for your meditation session. With that realization, the frustration melted away. My shoulders loosened, my eyebrows relaxed, and I returned to my breath.

As I focused, something shifted. Behind my closed eyes, the world seemed to brighten. My mind, usually so noisy, began to quiet. For a few precious moments, there were no thoughts at all. That’s meditation for me—taking all the static of my mind, all those overlapping channels, and narrowing them down to one… or sometimes turning them off completely.

Meditation isn’t perfect or peaceful every time, but it reminds me that even in a noisy office, I can choose calm. Today, I created a little pocket of peace—and that’s enough.