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Blog — relaxation response

The Mindful Myth: It’s Not Actually About Relaxation

Shannon Harvey

As a health journalist who writes about the science of the mind-body-health connection and who’s interviewed countless scientists on the subject, you would have thought that when I started making my new documentary about mindfulness, I would have known a thing or two. But just a few weeks into the endeavour I came across a study by neuroscientist Sara Lazar’s team at Harvard which changed everything and made me realise that I still had a lot to learn.The study caught my attention because Lazar’s team had done a direct comparison of two of the most famous meditation programs in the... Read full article »


How to Meditate - What type? How long? How often?

Shannon Harvey

The benefits of meditation are being proven again and again by researchers around the world every day. Scientists have shown meditation can enhance your immune system,  it can help you cope with chronic illness, and it can change your brain structure to help with anxiety, focus and attention.   But in a world where we have bills to pay, bank balances to replenish and relationships to nurture, finding time can be tricky. Many of us struggle to carve out time to get even the daily recommended dose of 30 minutes of exercise a day let alone finding any amount of... Read full article »


Why Mondays Might Just Kill You

Shannon Harvey

It was Monday morning. I was stuck in a hot car park with my husband and 18-month-old son. We were an hour out of Sydney. Our car was broken down. My email inbox was chock-a-block, there were a bunch of voicemails on my phone and I had a ‘To Do’ list as long as my arm.   We’d just spent the weekend on the Hawkesbury River at a holiday house only accessible by boat and after successfully transferring our luggage from the boat to the car with relatively little fuss from my son, we discovered the car had a flat... Read full article »


Two Simple Steps To Counter The Harmful Effects Of Stress

Shannon Harvey

In the 1960s, a young cardiologist named Dr. Herbert Benson had been sneaking transcendental meditators through the back door of his lab at Harvard University to study what happened to their body when they meditated. The result of his work was one of the major breakthroughs in modern mind body medicine.   Dr. Benson found dramatic physiological changes in the bodies of his subjects. He recorded decreased metabolism in the body, decreased heart rate, decreased rate of breathing and slower brain waves. He called his discovery the ‘relaxation response’ to suggest its role as a counter part to the stress... 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..

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My Year Of Living Mindfully (Documentary)

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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.

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The Whole Health Life (Book)

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

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