As a health journalist who writes about the science of the mind-body-health connection and who’s interviewed countless scientists on the subject, you would have thought that when I started making my new documentary about mindfulness, I would have known a thing or two. But just a few weeks into the endeavour I came across a study by neuroscientist Sara Lazar’s team at Harvard which changed everything and made me realise that I still had a lot to learn.The study caught my attention because Lazar’s team had done a direct comparison of two of the most famous meditation programs in the... Read full article »

In 2007, a 27-year old man known as ‘Mr A’ collapsed on the floor of a hospital emergency department after taking a drug overdose. His blood pressure was crashing, he was hyperventilating and shaking, and nurses sprang into action to insert an intravenous line into his arm to try and flush his system and save his life. The man had been taking part in an antidepressant drug trail. Although he said his mood had improved significantly in the first month, in the second month he had an argument with his ex-girlfriend and became suicidal. He took his remaining 29 pills... Read full article »

In the 1960s, a young cardiologist named Dr. Herbert Benson had been sneaking transcendental meditators through the back door of his lab at Harvard University to study what happened to their body when they meditated. The result of his work was one of the major breakthroughs in modern mind body medicine.   Dr. Benson found dramatic physiological changes in the bodies of his subjects. He recorded decreased metabolism in the body, decreased heart rate, decreased rate of breathing and slower brain waves. He called his discovery the ‘relaxation response’ to suggest its role as a counter part to the stress... Read full article »