I remember first learning meditation practice, as a somewhat distracted and giggly student. The leader of the session said that “the great thing about your breathing is that it’s always with you, you even take it with you on the bus!” I was sorely challenged in my attempt to keep a straight face. It was funny but it was true, it was funny because it was true.

New neuroscientific research claims to be the first evidence that actual changes in brain structure are associated with meditation: a thicker cerebral cortex in areas involved with attention and sensory processing, including the prefrontal cortex, used for planning complicated cognitive behaviours.

Trying and failing to get a baby off to sleep at naptime provided another chance to watch my mind in action, ruining another perfectly good 45 minutes of my life.

If we neglect our needs, whether they are for playing sports, or musical instruments, for love, social contact, making things, whatever they may be, the longer we leave them the harder it becomes to break some internal barrier that our organism erects and start fulfilling them again.

It seems obvious, as a main issue in ADHD is an inability to pay attention, that an attention-building technique should be helpful. The problem, though, is if people with ADHD will actually be able to sit down and do it!

Writing poetry can be a practice of mindful awareness — but does anyone else want to read it?

Something about this article rubs me up the wrong way — maybe it’s the title itself, “Master your emotions”. The cheerful, practical, common sense tone reinforces the idea that we are messy souls who need keeping in line, and who need to enforce a certain wholesome discipline for our own good. It sounds as if an adult is taking charge of a child.