Once you've started to meditate, you may find that the charm wears off after a few sessions. How do you stick with it so that you can reap all the benefits of a regular, long-term meditation practice?

Here are some tips:

• Stick with one kind of meditation most of the time so that you feel focused and practiced at your chosen technique.

• If you absolutely can't stand the thought of meditating on a given day, choose a different type of meditation, just for a change of pace.

• Put meditation into your schedule just like any other appointment. It's an appointment with yourself, and you should be the most important person in your life!

• Meditate at the same time or times each day, to get into a rhythm and cement your meditation into your schedule.

• If possible, meditate on an empty stomach, either before a meal or two hours after (one hour after a light meal). Your body will be able to focus more easily if it isn't busy digesting.

• Meditate at a high-energy time of day rather than a low-energy time of day. If you are a morning person, meditate in the morning. If you get going at night, meditate at night. You'll lessen your chances of nodding off, and you'll have better focus and concentration.

• Throughout your day, make a point to remember the feeling of meditation. Recalling the relaxing feeling of meditation can re-invoke that feeling, helping to extend meditation's stress-relieving effects all day long.

Your stress management journal can be part meditation journal. After meditating each day, make an entry that includes the date, time, how long you meditated, and how it felt. Your entries can be as long or short as you wish, but a journal will help you to keep a record of your practice and your progress. You might also detect patterns in your mood and energy level that affect your practice.

• Start meditating with a friend. Whether you meditate together, at the same time and/or in the same place, or maintain your separate meditation practices, you can call each other on those days when you don't feel like meditating and give each other encouragement and motivation.

Above all, just keep practicing. Practice, practice, practice. Practice may not make perfect (because nobody's perfect), but practice is what will eventually make dramatic changes in your life, your health, and your stress management mastery.