Now we get to sitting meditation. This is best reserved for the times when your dopaminergic makeup is settled, which tends to be in the evenings, and to a lesser extent the mornings.
Meditation needn't be hard and can be made easier if you use an on-ramp.
Walking before meditation will stabilise dopaminergic tone and make it easier.
A hot bath will have a similar effect, through raising tonic dopamine and serotonin.
A hot bath and vocalisations (formless humming to stimulate the vagus nerve and mid-brain) will have an even more profound effect.
There are many guides out there to get started. The type that we will focus on is vipassana meditation - the Buddhist approach which has been simplified into a practice called mindfulness.
Sit comfortably and let your focus stabilise. The advice usually is to focus on breath, but I find that gently swaying side to side and focusing on the feeling of gravity in the face is more effective. Experiment and find that works for you.
As attention settles, thoughts will arise; this is natural. Acknowledge them, thank them, and let them pass. If a thought refuses to leave, note it down briefly so it doesn’t linger.
Do not sit through pain or strong discomfort. Forcing through pain spikes phasic dopamine. Instead, make a note to adjust your position or address the issue once the initial urge has subsided. This both lowers phasic activation and trains non-reactivity.
Don't overthink it; any focal point is fine since the only aim here is to build easy focus.
Later, expand awareness to sensations throughout the body and head. The hands are a good anchor point - you may notice faint electrical tingles in the fingertips or cranium. You may not. You may just feel bored. That is fine too - how does the boredom feel in your body?
Don’t worry if you feel nothing unusual. Even if you experience only restlessness or mild cramping, and can manage only five minutes, you are still nudging your system in the right direction.
Somatic releases - shivers, sighs, or spontaneous vocalisations - are normal and indicate that stored emotional energy is dissipating and thought-feeling loops are unwinding. Neither suppress nor force them.
By all means, read books or other guidance on meditation, but remember that this is your mind observing your mind. Whoever wrote those guides has a different neural architecture, so their phenomenology will differ from yours.
You set the parameters.