Read our posts about Meditation

27Jan

The Basics of Mindfulness: Where Did It Come From?

Andres Fossas

meditation, mindfulness

Soul

Mindfulness has become entirely mainstream, but where does this ancient practice originate from?
» Read More

22Jan

5 Ways to Stay Focused

Graham Doke

meditation, stress, tips, wellbeing

Soul

Meditation expert Graham Doke offers five ways to stay focused on your resolutions this year.
» Read More

14Jul

How Meditation Cured Dan Harris's Panic Attacks

Louise Chunn

anxiety, meditation, mindfulness, TV

Mind

US journalist Dan Harris’s on-screen meltdown radically altered his life. Before his nationally broadcast panic attack on ABC news, Harris was your average over-worked, professionally anxious reporter. He’d joined the network at the extremely young age of 21, and was  thrown into the deep end when he was sent to Afghanistan to cover the Taliban. After a long stint dodging bullets in Afghanistan and then Pakistan, he returned home to a studio-bound job  with a severe case of undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder. He dealt with this by dosing himself up on...
» Read More

26Apr

Mindfulness Tames the Monkey Mind

Aaron Balick

meditation, mindfulness, stress, therapy

Therapists

Mindfulness can help even when you think your mistake is beyond its reach says therapist Aaron Balick
» Read More

04Mar

Discovering Vedic Meditation

Nick Duerden

meditation

Soul

It's early on a Thursday evening, and I'm standing alongside a man I have just met, Will Williams, in his smart Shad Thames apartment. We are in front of a photograph of Guru Dev, one of the masters of the Vedic tradition, and Will has his eyes closed while singing something in Sanskrit and offering the gifts I was encouraged to bring - three pieces of fruit, a bunch of thornless flowers - to the guru. As he sings, I steel a glance at Will. His eyes are closed, and he looks utterly serene. Will himself does not resemble what we in the west think of as a "guru". He is...
» Read More

28Feb

Tantric Trance

Claudine Levy

meditation, sex

Body

Think of the word ‘trance’ and you think of music, drug-fuelled dance and trippy raves off the M25 in the 80s. Think of the word tantric and you think of sex. Now put the two together and you have yourself a very alternative way to spend your time. It was with this in mind that I blindly followed my friend into a church in Vauxhall on Saturday night. The space was lit with flickering candle-light and the smell of incense was overwhelming.  Various free-spirits festooned the pews, stretching and deep breathing, as if preparing to embark on a marathon of mind, body and...
» Read More

27Feb

Musical Meditation: Discovering LifeFlow

Nick Duerden

meditation, music

Soul

A few months ago now, I came across an audio meditation practice called LifeFlow, the conjoining of the two words presumably designed to illustrate the effortless link that should exist within all of us in the ideal world we all wish to inhabit. "You can allow this scientifically proven audio technology to bring your whole life into perfect harmony and feel peace of mind today!" read the aggressively motivational website blurb, employing, as these things invariably do, a proliferation of exclamation marks in pursuit of blanket persuasion. "YES!" it went on in...
» Read More

25Feb

Yoga: Meditation for the Restless

Lucy Greeves

meditation, yoga

Body

It was day two of the yoga retreat. We’d just sat for our second evening meditation, in the profound silence of a candlelit limestone cave, and we were sharing some thoughts about our experiences. Suddenly one of my fellow students, in some distress, burst out, “It’s no use! I’m trying and trying and I can’t do it.  I just can’t empty my mind!” Of all the misconceptions about meditation, this is one of the most common – and probably the most unhelpful. Of course the poor woman couldn’t empty her mind – it’s a contradiction in terms. ‘Mind’ is the word we use for...
» Read More

13Feb

How to Meditate: Discovering Headspace

Nick Duerden

meditation, mindfulness

Soul

In his book Headspace: 10 Minutes Can Make All The Difference, Andy Puddicombe writes: "This is meditation, but not as you know it. There's no chanting, no sitting cross-legged, no need for any particular beliefs… and definitely no gurus." This, then, is  Meditation 2.0,  aiming to free the practice from its hippy associations . Puddicombe is mindfulness's first poster boy, a former monk and  circus trainer, who boasts good bone structure and an Abercrombie & Fitch dress sense. The New York Times has already suggested he is "doing for meditation what Jamie...
» Read More

27Jan

Meditation: My Journey Begins

Nick Duerden

meditation, stress

Soul

I have never had much time in my life for peace or quiet, and have never really craved either. My mind is a happy hive of perpetual activity, everything churning away up there all the time, day and night. My wife points out, with reason, that I never sit still, never stop. At night, I dream of work, and on holidays, thanks to technology, I take it with me. In sleep, I grind my teeth. The RSI I developed 20 years ago was put down to overwork, poor posture, bad habits, a lack of inner calm. My solution was to start swimming, every day. I swam fast, faster than people in...
» Read More