I’m wary of anything that promises to change my life, especially if it has a quick-fix whiff about it. In my experience, profound change has always required patience, commitment, and most noticeably, my precious time. But what if that last ingredient wasn’t necessary?

Diving into Meditation in a New York Minute: Super Calm for the Super Busy, a book by corporate meditation coach (and former high-power C.O.O.) Mark Thornton, I began to consider this: maybe I’ve been short-changing myself, taking the long road to self-betterment for no reason. Maybe there is a better, faster way, at least some of the time.

Thornton’s book ($12.95, $19.95 for audio ) asserts that you already have an hour to spend meditating without adding a thing to your hectic, 80-plus-hour work week. (Remember: he’s talking to Super Busies.) The trick is to accumulate that hour with something you might call micro-meditating, or filling otherwise wasted seconds and minutes with positive thoughts, visual images, breathing and other techniques. The moments between meetings, in the shower, on the treadmill, at your desk, stuck in traffic, or on the bus are all fair game.

Thornton started meditating at age 14. For the book, he logged 3,000 hours with 30 teachers of varying meditative traditions in seven countries (all in one year—no wonder he knows Super Busy lives so well). His words are crisp, straightforward, and sincere, and what results is eminently practical advice. He likens meditation to a hammer, not because you can smash things with it, but because it’s “a tool with a specific purpose.” That purpose is to connect with the “ocean of calm” that exists within all of us, where only positive feelings reside. Like any good teacher, he repeats key concepts and simplifies, but doesn’t talk down. When he says, “you can be super busy, super successful, and super calm at the same time,” he can sound a bit like an infomercial host. Your inner cynic’s alarm bell might go off, as did mine—but do yourself a favor, and hit snooze. You won’t find a single droplet of inner peace, let alone an ocean, if you don’t play along.

Throughout the book, Thornton inserts heart symbols as a memory device to induce calm in the reader. He does this, he says, because Super Busy people tend to skim instead of read. The first of many quick "Try It Now" tips arrives on page 5: change your screensaver to "Calm," "Breathe," or another similar word you choose as your own tranquility trigger. Once you’ve developed a meditation practice, these triggers, like the repeating hearts, will unlock calm effortlessly.

The book has three sections. The first two, or roughly half, lay it all out for total beginners. You don’t need to be the Dalai Lama, it says, but you will learn the same techniques that he and other masters use: focusing, breathing, “making sounds (such as mantras),” and visualization. These chapters explain why you should meditate (that inner ocean again), the Five Secrets (including dealing with distractions), and Eleven Thieves (such as passing judgment) of Meditation.

The third section delivers the hard goods—19 techniques to practice, ideally, for the rest of your life. “Eating with Awareness,” a sure crowd-pleaser among beginners, encourages noticing your meal’s colors, textures and aromas as well as how your body feels (and how those feelings change) as you chew, preferably slowly. If you’re the answering-emails-over-take-out kind of lunch eater, this one will require setting aside extra time, but not very much. More abstract techniques such as "Magnify Heart Energy" encompass everything from actually sitting in prayer position with hands folded and awareness heightened, as in yoga, to simply designating your heart as the “default resting place” anytime your thoughts wander.

So how about it, LIME reader? Are you ready to go from stress to bliss in zero-to-60? Try one of Thornton’s techniques and let us know what happens in the comments below. Or, think about what empty slivers of time in your own day you might wish to fill with calm, and share them with us.

Photo: Sounds True

Meditation in a New York Minute: Super Calm for the Super Busy, By Mark Thornton

Cost: $16.99

Where to Buy it: Amazon