You don’t have to sit on a mountain to be able to do mindful meditation

Mindfulness meditation made it into a debate in the House of Commons this week, in the context of government explorations of ways to help people with mental health problems who are out of work.

As usual, mental health concerns are being considered because of their economic impact, but at least evidence on the benefits of meditation is being noticed.

Meditation has started making its way into schools too. The ‘Mindfulness in Schools Project’ is a non-governmental group of teachers and researchers who are investigating the benefits of a specially devised meditation programme for young people in educational settings. Results suggest meditation can improve children’s concentration and general wellbeing. Maybe the government should look at putting some funding into using meditation in schools rather than waiting for problems to develop later on.

If you want to hear what mindfulness for young people sounds like, download “beditation” from itunes, part of the mindfulness in schools “.b” podcast.