Here it is.

Nicola Preston Bell is an experienced hypnotherapist specialising in solution-focused psychotherapy. She trained at Uncommon Knowledge, the Brighton based diploma course and has supervised and mentored on this internationally renowned course. The combination of brief solution-focused psychotherapy and hypnosis with effective NLP* techniques result in accessing the client’s inner resources to bring about life long change. You can find out more about Nicola here.

This meditation is from their Breath and Sounds Adults Program and uses and builds upon many aspects of mindfulness that we have already touched upon.

Each day, he would shovel down the porridge or eggs almost but now quite rolling his eyes. Just another thing to do to make Mum happy.

This morning, he got up early to make himself poached eggs and bacon. I of course, thought he’d finally started listening to me. Wrong.

The new cool teacher at school had apparently done a big talk on nutrition and the importance of breakfast. My son had no memory of my conversations with him about breakfast- it was all about Mr Benton. And now breakfast is suddenly cool in my household.

So in the same spirit (because I do know I tend to bang on a bit about the marvels of meditation) I thought I’d let the wonderful Meredith Melnick do the talking from an article published yesterday in the Huffington Post (full article here).

Here’s what she said:

 

Studies show that meditation is associated with improvement in a variety of psychological areas, including stress, anxiety, addiction, depression, eating disorders and cognitive function, among others. There’s also research to suggest that meditation can reduce blood pressure, pain response, stress hormone levels and even cellular health. But what does it actually do to the body?

For one thing, it changes our brain. The cells and neurons in the brain are constantly making new connections and disrupting old ones based on response to stimuli, a quality that researchers call experience-based neuroplasticity. This affects the neural circuits of the brain, which in turn affects how we respond to situations. It also affects the actual structure of our brains — thickening some areas and making others less dense.

“Think of the end of a neuron as a hand, with thousands of ‘fingers,’” said Dr. Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital who studies mindfulness meditation. “The number of fingers relates to the number of interconnections between neurons and that number can change — one reason it can change is due to stress.”

It is a mindfulness meditation focussed on the breath.

While you are getting used to it, just focus on the sound. That’s it.

This meditation focusses on the breath. You can find out more here

She designed it to be used for those times when you need to prepare for something special – an audition, an interview or a game.

You can find out more about Emily (and her extremely special online course) here.

Tara has also written a number of beautiful books that have had a big impact on me. One of my favourites is True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom  in Your Own Awakened Heart. We are regularly asked for great authors who can help navigate through life – Tara is one we often recommend. You can find buy her books here.