Meditation

We teach a plain version of this: sit, or lie down, or walk; attend to something specific; come back when you notice you have wandered. No incense required and no commitment to a worldview.

What suits people here, in practice. Walking meditation along the coast walk works for the large number of people who find sitting still intolerable — the attention goes to the feet and the breath rather than the view. Breath practice before or after a surf fits an existing habit, and habits attached to habits survive. Ten minutes in the car before walking into the house is the one that parents actually keep doing, because it is the only unclaimed time in the day.

Three kinds are worth knowing about: mindfulness, which is attention to the present and the most researched; guided, which is following a recording and the easiest place to start; and mantra, which repeats a phrase and suits busy minds. Trying one for a fortnight tells you more than reading about all three.

Being straightforward about claims: structured mindfulness programmes have reasonable evidence in stress, chronic pain and preventing relapse in depression. Meditation is not a treatment for a medical condition and we will not suggest it is. And if inward attention increases distress rather than reducing it, which happens particularly with a trauma history, stop and speak to a psychologist.

We are in Freshwater, ten streets from Balgowlah and about twenty from Manly.