Meditation is “in”. There are more than 1,000 mindfulness courses proliferating across the UK as more and more people struggling with anxiety, depression and stress turn towards a practice adapted from a 2,400-year-old Buddhist tradition, reports Robert Booth in The Guardian. An Oxford University study has found meditation can reduce relapses into depression by 44% and it is as effective as taking antidepressants. It involves sitting still, focusing on your breath, noticing when your attention drifts and bringing it back to your breath — and it is surprisingly challenging.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

But psychiatrists have now sounded a warning about its  troubling side-effects. Ed Halliwell, who teaches in London says, “You can sometimes get the impression that mindfulness is a magic pill you can apply without effort,” he said. It is not like that at all. You are working with the heart of your experiences, learning to turn towards them, and that is difficult and can be uncomfortable.” Marie Johansson, of Oxford University’s mindfulness centre, stressed the need for proper training of at least a year until health professionals can teach meditation, partly because on rare occasions it can throw up “extremely distressing experiences”. Another teacher, Lokhadi, says, “While mindfulness meditation doesn’t change people’s experience, things can feel worse before they feel better.” 

http://goo.gl/LnGPxy