Read this article in yesterday's Daily Mail and thought it was quite interesting

How to achieve inner peace in just 100 minutes

Five short sessions of meditation could be enough to help us achieve peace of mind.

A study which introduced the relaxation technique to novices found they had lower stress levels and more energy after only a handful of 20 minute training sessions.

While the benfits of months or years of meditation are well known, this is the first evidence that merely dabbling can help.

The US researchers focused on the effects of a meditation technique known as integrative body-mind training, or IBMT.

Developed in the 1900s but based on ancient Chinese medicine, IBMT combines the principles of other meditation methods, such as posture, mental imagery and body relaxation and breathing techniques.

Thought control, one of the cornerstones of traditional meditation, is not key from the outset and is developed gradually.

The researchers from the University of Oregan compared the health of two groups of Chinese students. Half were given five day's training in IBMT, while the other half were taught basic relaxation techniques.

Afterwards, those in the IBMT group showed significantly greater improvement in tests of attention and mood than did the other group.

Levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue had gone down, while energy levels rose, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported.

The researchers said "We believe that the integration of the various methods into one easy to use training package may affect why IBMT is effective at such a low dose".