Meditation has a long history in spiritual traditions and is a broad term for a diverse range of practices which are designed to cultivate a calm, concentrated, and absorbed state of mind, by focusing on a single object. Some meditation styles include mantra, open awareness, visualisation techniques, insight meditation, just to name a handful. Mindfulness meditation is a specific approach to meditation that can be thought of as a kind of ‘attention training’…

When we cultivate the ability to focus our concentration through meditation, we get better at observing our experiences in life with greater clarity and focus, with less judgement and more compassion. People often describe a sense of spaciousness that arises with an ongoing meditation practice: That extra ‘space’ supports less reactivity and a deepened capacity to respond to life with greater ease. This has an abundance of potential positive flow on effects….

The practice of resting the body and the mind is not something new, Buddhist text Kayagata-sati Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 119 teaches us to visit every part of our body and be familiar with what’s going on it it, being aware of every state of our mind—accepting, understanding, then releasing each state that arises—visiting every part with awareness, acceptance, care, and without judgment (Sister Chan Khong, 2022). In the context of modern society’s ‘grind culture’, taking time to rest the body seems like a radical act…..