A recent television documentary showed how a school has developed a revolutionary method of teaching

and controlling its young pupils through group meditation exercise.

Pupils at the school in Southampton have a regular class where they are allowed to lie down on the floor in the shavasana, corpse pose, of yoga while the teacher talks them through the deep relaxation and meditation process.

The pupils have taken to this with great enthusiasm and have experienced a new sense of peace and calm. Their behaviour has become more disciplined and they perform better in their studies.

According to the documentary, hyperactive children who disrupt the class during a lesson or who suffer from attention deficit disorder have become much calmer and attentive, have stopped throwing things around during a lesson and feel much more confident.

This proves my point about group therapies in the community and schools using the practice of meditation and yoga about which I have written extensively in previous columns.

I believe children and young adults are under enormous pressure these days. They seem to be suffering a lot of stress because of the demands made on them by society:

Having to perform better in school, competitiveness, peer-group pressure, emotional adjustment and social readjustment to a highly material and dispassionate social structure, broken families, stressed-out parents and arguments at home.

Parents are also suffering from the stresses of coping with pressures of work and financial worries while dealing with challenging behaviour from children.

Often, we just do not know how to handle youngsters. Punishment can work with some but can be generally counterproductive because of the greater sense of individuality in children today.

Given this state of stress in society, I believe group meditation at home could be immensely valuable in promoting peace and harmony, relieving tensions and anxieties and maintaining a pleasant, productive atmosphere. The sanctity of such a gathering generates and propagates happy vibrations of peace and love, so vital to the harmony of any group of people.

I see many young people suffering from stress due to the nature of their work or excessive pressure from employers. Little attention is paid in our business environment to help staff break their stress as it builds up. Businesses which have adopted schemes such as meditation and massage for their workers have benefitted from a happy and more productive workforce.

I believe if meditation were practised daily for ten to fifteen minutes in hospitals, work places and Parliament, this earth would be a much happier place.