Aditi Shah’s New Meditation Program Launches

Meditation may be seen as luxury in our busy lives, but what if it’s actually the missing piece to help you feel more focused on your health and fitness goals? Peloton instructor Aditi Shah released a new 7-day program at the beginning of 2025 called “7 Days to Start Your Meditation Practice” and it’s designed to make mindfulness approachable and effective for everyone, whether you’re brand-new to meditation or looking to refresh your practice. 

Tip: I recommend also going back to Aditi’s previous Program, “Intro to Meditation” from 2022, to get a really comprehensive experience with the different kinds of meditations and how they benefit you. In both Programs, Aditi’s soothing voice and clear instructions provide wonderful guidance for these internal explorations. 

Meditation and Mindfulness – What’s the Difference?

Meditation and mindfulness are closely related, and in Peloton classes they are sometimes interwoven, despite being distinct practices. Mindfulness is the practice of being fully present and aware of the moment you are in. This can happen while meditating, or at any time throughout your day. Meditation is a broader technique that involves setting aside time to focus inward, often using methods like deep breathing, visualization, or mantra repetition to calm the mind. In Aditi’s new Program, she introduces members to both techniques and then melds mindfulness practice into her meditation classes. It’s a great way to start! 

 

The Science Behind Meditation’s Health Benefits

Simplify Stress Reduction

Life can be overwhelming, and stress often takes a toll on our mental and physical well-being. Meditation has been scientifically proven to lower cortisol levels (your body’s stress hormone), helping you feel calmer and more present. Ever take three deep breaths before a tough conversation at work or at home? It helps, doesn’t it?  

Boost Your Focus and Clarity 

Feeling scattered? Meditation helps improve focus, enhance memory, and boost creativity. The practice actually increases your brain’s grey matter, particularly in the prefrontal cortex (the area responsible for decision-making, attention, and focus), and in the hippocampus (involved in memory and learning). Regular meditation also has been shown to reduce the size and activity of the amygdala, the brain’s stress center, allowing the brain to better focus on tasks without being overwhelmed by emotional distractions.

Make the Most of Your Workouts

One of the most impactful changes I have seen in my own workouts, since starting to meditate and practice yoga a few years ago, is that I better understand when instructors in the other disciplines (outside of yoga) cue breathing to maximize the fitness work we are doing. This happens a lot in Power Zone rides. In these classes, it’s really essential on some of those long intervals to be able to tune in to your body for that mind-muscle connection. I also feel benefits as I increase my Strength classes and am more aware of how inhales and exhales impact my lifting capacity.  

Note: I’ve been working on building a consistent practice for 3 years and counting, with the help of my Power Zone team, the PZYogis, where we talk and read a lot about this topic. I am still not as consistent as I hoped to be by now, but I have a much better grasp on the art and science of all this and I love to keep learning. 

 

Bonus Benefit: Meditation Reminds You to Give Yourself Grace

One of the most beautiful aspects of meditation is its forgiving nature. Unlike many routines or habits, there’s no “right” way to meditate and no penalty for missing a session (even though Peloton’s Program function denies you the 100% completion badge if you don’t complete the classes as ordered, Aditi does say that you can and should just do them as you can and go back and repeat ones you liked). Each day is an opportunity to start fresh, no matter how many times you’ve stopped and restarted. 

Peloton yoga and cycling instructor Denis Morton recently started saying during some of his classes, “the practice is the practice” and I find that to be true for meditation as well. Noted author Dan Harris writes (and Aditi reiterates), “many people falsely believe that meditation requires a magical clearing of the mind, but getting distracted (by your thoughts) isn’t failing, it’s succeeding.” Why? Because building that muscle of resiliency carries over into so many other aspects of life, and what we do on the mat is training us for what we do off the mat. (Disclosure, I am a big Dan Harris fan and highly recommend his book, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics.) Building the habit of letting yourself start again is so useful, in so many ways. 

 

How to Get Started Building Your Meditation Practice

The beauty of Aditi’s new program is its brevity. Most of us can actually find 10 minutes a day for 7 days to do this (see my class review below for ways to incorporate this). Figuring out what works for you is the key to building a sustainable practice, and Aditi gives good tips on making this happen. 

Peloton has also been promoting the benefits of rest and recovery lately (more than it used to) so even simply using a 5- or 10-minute meditation to get your daily dot (especially for the 100-Day Streak Challenge Badge) is a great idea. Adding in these small actions will help you build the habit, too!  

Tip – check out habit-building suggestions from the pros! Peloton gives tips on their website and many people find that Atomic Habits, the popular book by James Clear, helps them.  

 

What Happens During This Program?

Peloton bundles classes for members in Collections and Programs. Collections are generally grouped after classes appear live or on-demand, and being able to find them under a logical heading (such as “Rebecca’s Standing Core” or “Matty’s Walk and Talk”) helps members find them. Programs, on the other hand, often premiere new classes that roll out to members after they “join” the program and then progressively advance through them. (In response to the restrictiveness of earlier Programs, which really did force members to take every class in order, Programs now offers the ability to hit the “Skip Class” button if you want to advance a little faster, but you will lose points if you are going for that full completion badge.) 

Start Your Meditation Practice is found under Programs, but it’s definitely able to be done in any order you want. That was good news for me, because as I planned to demo all the classes, I definitely needed some flexibility to fit into my workout week! 

Tip – some experts say that while there are definite benefits to creating a dedicated meditation space to help you want to go there and practice, others encourage people to be more flexible and acknowledge that they can practice wherever they can find the moments in their day (including former Peloton instructor Ross Rayburn, in his book Turning Inward!). I tried both ways for this Class Review and here’s what I learned…

Day 1 Review

Type of Meditation: Class 2 – Mindfulness of Breath*

Where and When I Practiced: I listened to this class sitting on my Bike, while doing a 10-Minute Warm Up Ride on the Bike, just in time to catch Matt Wilpers’ Saturday morning Power Zone class live. (I listened to the meditation on my phone and played the warm up silently on my Bike just moving my legs but both classes showed up after in my Workout History.) 

Why I Chose This Timing: As a not-so-novice meditator who needs to get back on track, I figured what better time to stack this habit then ahead of my favorite ride of the week? Matt talks so much about breathwork, and Mindfulness of Breath is one of my favorite types of Peloton meditation, what could go wrong?

How It Went: Great! I loved Aditi’s messages about “simple not being easy” and that “the goal is to pay attention.” So aligned with Power Zone rides, I felt I was off to a great start! 

*Note: the first recommended class is a 5-Minute Intro, but I skipped it due to timing constraints ahead of the live ride and did it the following day. No Gold Badge for me, but that’s ok!

Day 2 Review

Type of Meditations: Introduction (from Day 1) and Class 3 – Mindfulness of Body

Where and When I Practiced: I stacked this again ahead of my workout, but today was a rest-ish day and I had 30 beginner yoga minutes with Denis planned. I was on my yoga mat, in the traditional seated posture, looking at my plants on the table and trees out the window. 

Why I Chose This Timing: I often get antsy after yoga (I’m one of those people who still struggles to be still in savasana more often than not) so stacking meditations at the end is usually a barrier for me to complete them. Doing this one ahead of my flow would certainly get me in the zone!

How It Went: I did listen to the Intro today as well, and I appreciated hearing Aditi talk about “meditation being the opposite of escapism, because we are actually tuning into our inner reality.” She reviewed some basic concepts and posture options, thanked a lot of folks, and off we went. The meditation was a body scan, where we bring our attention to different parts of our bodies as cued by the instructor. What a lucky one to stack ahead of a Denis class that turned out to be slow and Ross-like in its long holds and stretches! Plenty of time to really connect that mind-muscle connection and think about how our bodies hold emotions. Loved the synergy! 

 

Day 3 Review

Type of Meditation: Class 4 – Metta Meditation

Where and When I Practiced: On a comfy reading chair, after lunch.

Why I Chose This Timing: Using meditation as a break before beginning my afternoon work is a habit I used for some time last year so I wanted to go back and try it again. 

How It Went: Metta is a style of meditation that helps you “cultivate loving kindness” towards yourself and then others, in a widening circle of your community. I generally find these to be a bit emotionally triggering in a “wait, why do I feel like I’m in therapy” kind of way, and I haven’t done a lot of them since sampling them back in Aditi’s 3-week program a few years ago. However, I tried to keep an open mind as I’m restarting things, and I realized that I can access this positive mindset in a way that is not as deep as I was previously making it. Denis used to say that worrying is like manifesting for something you didn’t want to happen, to happen, so I tried to use the time in this meditation focusing on the opposite, bringing positivity to the person Aditi had us focus on. 

Note: so far I realized that most of these classes have the same piece of music, LA5 by Moby. This is fine except that I like to wear headphones to meditate because it helps me focus. Unfortunately, something is weird with this audio such that one section of the music switches completely from ear to ear making it incredibly distracting and unbalanced, at least for me. 

 

Day 4 – Review

Type of Meditation: Class 5 – Breathing Meditation

Where and When I Practiced: On a wooden chair in my kitchen with a cup of tea.

Why I Chose This Timing: Marking a break between tasks and sitting quietly and vertically seemed like a good position to try.

How It Went: I didn’t check to see what kind of class this would be before making my tea and choosing this position, and I was a little annoyed with myself when I saw it was a Breathing Meditation because I know from other Peloton classes they are typically really focused, like Box Breath or Alternate Nostril Breathing, and having a cup of tea at the same time would be a bit disastrous. It turned out to be another Mindfulness of Breath instead. I then became a little annoyed with Peloton for mislabeling the class (I also generally wish they would take more care and specificity with all of their meditation class labelling, but that’s a topic for another day). 

Halfway through it, my husband wandered into the kitchen and I got distracted. Then the music changed and it was LA5 again, and my headphones had me fighting off vertigo once more. I tried to salvage the experience by turning off the music and reading the subtitles. Luckily, Aditi didn’t say much in the last few minutes so staring at the steam rising from my mug of tea and paying attention to my breath going in and out was as good as this one was going to get for me. 

 

Day 5 – Review

Type of Meditation: Class 6 – Body Scan Meditation

Where and When I Practiced: On my mat after completing a 6o-minutes of Strength class with Andy.

Why I Chose This Timing: I don’t often have the patience to stay on the mat after a workout, but wanted to see how it felt to tune into my body after a very focused physical workout. I sat in hero pose, hips elevated on a yoga block, for the full 10 minutes.

How It Went: Aditi is one of my favorite instructors for body scans, and over time I have learned to channel her calm voice into helping me fall back to sleep at night after waking up by repeating some of her favorite phrasing. This class was a pretty basic one, but it helped to sit in hero pose so I could keep remembering to elongate my spine and feel my breath move to all the parts of my body as she cued them. This was a winner for me as I also listened without my earphones, so when LA5 came on again in the second half (I finally realized that each class will play the same two songs in the same order) I was able to really enjoy the vibrational tones without feeling like I was about to fall over from being off balance. 

 

Day 6 – Review

Type of Meditation: Class 7 – Metta Meditation

Where and When I Practiced: Back in my reclined reading chair, after lunch, in the sun on a cold winter afternoon.

Why I Chose This Timing: Knowing that Metta feels like therapy to me, I figured I might as well get comfortable!

How It Went: Revisiting Metta for the second time in this Program, this time focusing on compassion for ourselves, was a challenge for me. I much prefer the meditations that focus on the physical rather than the emotional. Aditi acknowledges that these are hard for many of us. Hearing that definitely helped me recognize that I was “comfortably uncomfortable” but that that was ok.

Without turning this review into a deep dive into my psyche, let’s just say that I made it out the other side thanks to remembering an interesting connection that Denis Morton often makes. He says, “the biggest fallacy about love songs is that they are written about someone else.” Meaning, if you listen to the words and apply them internally, you will be able to find compassion for yourself that you may not have known you needed. This approach is a little easier for me than using the standard mantra, and definitely preferable to imagining that I am talking to childhood me. Whew!

 

Day 7 – Review

Type of Meditation: Class 8 – Metta Meditation

Where and When I Practiced: Sitting on my yoga bolster with my back against the couch in the afternoon.

Why I Chose This Timing: On the day of the grande finale I thought I should sit in my most traditional posture, one that helped me focus when I read Ross’ book last year. Having my back against the couch to stay tall, being rooted but soft on the bolster, and having my hips elevated helped me think about connecting with everyone else on the leaderboard who was meditating at the same time.

How It Went: Wrapping up with the third variation of Metta, projecting compassion towards others more generally and globally, was a wonderful way to end the program. Given that this is early January 2025, there is a lot of divisiveness in the world, and without getting too hokey about it, this Metta practice and the mantra used reminds us that we are all human, we are all connected, and that a little compassion for each other goes a long way. 

 

Key Takeaways to Help You Get Started

In summary, this was a solid Program to help members begin or reset their meditation practice. The manageable 7-day duration as well as the 10-minute classes mostly broken into 2 halves (so you are actually only really meditating for 5 minutes after listening to Aditi offer reflections and suggestions) makes it very accessible.

To help build the meditation habit, make it easy on yourself:

• Use a program or group challenge that offers you a checklist to tick through to stay accountable (for example, the Power Zone Pack offers yoga pairings alongside each challenge, curated by my PZ Yogis team lead, and they include weekly meditations you can easily click to stack).
• Sample the instructors and find who works for you, then lean into their offerings.
• Experiment with different spaces where you might meditate – sometimes it’s enticing to have a refuge in your home to go to that’s peaceful and separate, making meditation a time you seek out for solace; but other times it may be easier to craft an “on the go” approach, and that’s great too!

The biggest reason I have found to develop a meditation practice is that we deserve to give our mental/emotional side the same attention that we give our physical bodies when we think about fitness and wellness. Yoga instructor Anna Greenberg likes to talk about “our bodies are our homes for life” and I always love to hear that. It reminds me that our bodies are more than the muscles we build in Strength classes or the VO2 capacity we develop in Cardio classes. Our bodies include our brains, and training our minds to develop a holistic approach to health is so important for living a well-lived life.

Try Aditi’s new program and let us know how your meditation practice develops!

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