Shopping Cart

Blog — meditation

I Set Myself A Health Goal And Actually Stuck To It. What Changed?

Shannon Harvey

371 days ago things weren’t pretty. I was an anxious insomniac and I never felt as though there was enough time in the day. There were also some troubling signs that my illness, which causes arthritic chronic pain and fatigue when I let my stress get out of control, was going to flare.It’s ironic that the final chapter in my book was called Lasting Change because the single most important change that I had made in order to live well despite my illness was the one that I had allowed to slip. My daily meditation and yoga practice had made... Read full article »


The Power of Purpose and Passion In Dark Times

Shannon Harvey

This time last week I found myself weeping in hotel room in the Middle East.I had just spent my day filming in a dusty refugee camp on the border of Syria and Jordan where I had interviewed a single mother of six children who’s answer to my question, “If you could wish for anything in the world right now, what would it be?” was “Anything? If I could have anything, it would be a tarpaulin for the roof because it leaks in the rain and winter is coming.”I was in Jordan; a country on the front line of a global... Read full article »


Mind The Hype: Is Meditation Really All That Great?

Shannon Harvey

Around this time last year I found myself in the midst of a professional crisis of conscience. The credibility of my work as a health journalist was being put to the test after I read an academic paper in which a group of 15 well-respected neuroscientists, mindfulness researchers, and meditation teachers warned that mindfulness is being over-sold and over-hyped and that some people are being misled, cheated, disappointed and even harmed. The paper inspired a series of alarming headlines such as Mindfulness Is a Meaningless Word With Shoddy Science Behind It and Is Mindfulness Meditation BS? I say alarming, because... Read full article »


Surprising Truth: Meditation Hasn't Made Me Happier

Shannon Harvey

I looked at the older, bald, robed man across from me and thought, whatever he’s on, I want some. I was interviewing Matthieu Ricard, the renowned Buddhist monk who normally lives in a monastery in Nepal but was in Australia as a keynote speaker at the Happiness and Its Causes Conference. It was eight in the evening and the 71-year-old was on his fourth and final day of a whirlwind tour. Starting in 2004, neuroscientists performed a series of seminal brain scans on Ricard and the popular media started calling him the happiest man on earth. As we prepared for... Read full article »


What’s So Great the Most Popular Meditation Course on The Planet?

Shannon Harvey

On a stinking hot summer Sydney afternoon I lay in a room with 15 other people, eyes closed, attempting to focus on the present by paying attention to my sensations, thoughts, emotions, and breath. The person next to me was snoring peacefully but I was far from feeling blissed out and “one with the moment.” I was feeling hot, fidgety and frustrated and I kept thinking, “Shit, I’m supposed to endure this every day, for the next eight weeks. Why didn’t I sign up to a cooking class instead?”Far from developing my culinary expertise, I had in fact signed up... Read full article »


This Is What Happened When I Started Meditating (Again)

Shannon Harvey

I loaded up my app and listened to the experienced words of the meditation teacher who invited me to take a comfortable position and begin. She asked me to focus on my breath. In. Out. In. Out. And instructed that when I got distracted, to gently call my attention back to my breath.  It was Day 14 of “My Year of Living Mindfully.” The idea came about when I admitted that after the birth of my second baby, I’d completely dropped my daily meditation habit. After the return of my stress-induced nail biting habit, my insomnia, and some troubling early... Read full article »


My Year of Living Mindfully (Book)

In the midst of a global mental health crisis, millions of people have turned to mindfulness. But does it actually make us happier and healthier? In a world-first experiment, journalist Shannon Harvey recruited a team of scientists to put mindful meditation to the test. But what began as a year-long self-experiment soon became a life-changing experience..

BUY THE BOOK NOW

My Year Of Living Mindfully (Documentary)

Buy The Film Now

The Connection: Mind Your Body (Documentary)

The Connection is a feature documentary that uncovers the latest science in mind body medicine and proves we have much more to say about our health than we thought possible.

Buy The Film Now

The Whole Health Life (Book)

This is a guidebook for anyone who wants to get healthy, find balance, and live better.

Buy The Book Now

SIGN UP TO MY NEWSLETTER

I'm dedicated to high-quality health journalism and storytelling. If you value these things too, subscribe to my (mostly) weekly newsletter and be the first to receive my new blogs, podcasts, films and special events. I promise I won’t spam you or share your email address with anyone else.

Join 40,000 others.