John BurstonAustralia’s 40-year-old Lifeflow Meditation Centre has decided to offer its online Learn to Meditate course to Victorians to help them deal with the mental and emotional stress caused by their State’s extended COVID-19 lockdown.

The six-part online course, which normally costs $220, provides a step-by-step program that demystifies meditation, making it easy to learn simple meditation practices and, most importantly, to put them to use in daily life. Victorians can receive free access to the full online course until lockdown ends on June 10 by using the promo code VIC100 on the Lifeflow website at https://lifeflow.com.au.

Lifeflow Meditation Centre provides its students with a practical and contemporary approach to learning skills from a meditation and mindfulness tradition that spans more than 2500 years. It reports benefits from meditation including enabling people to relax quickly and efficiently, improving concentration and clarity of mind, reducing anxiety, improving sleep and gaining a general sense of well-being.

Last year, Lifeflow saw increased attendance at its advanced meditation courses as well as a waiting list to attend meditation retreats at its Tara Hills Retreat Centre in the Adelaide Hills.

Lifeflow Meditation Centre Director of Teaching John Burston said that increased demand showed greater anxiety due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “A crisis brings us face-to-face with the main benefit of meditation: The ability to keep our minds calm in the heat of the moment,” he said.

“A great benefit of our online course is that we can support students throughout Australia, which is how we can offer free access to anyone who is suffering the stress of lockdown in Victoria.”

Australian research, including fortnightly COVID-19 impact surveys of 1028 adults across Australia by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, suggests that the pandemic has “had an immediate and substantial impact on the mental health and wellbeing of the population”. Findings indicate:

• 68 per cent of those surveyed have been concerned or very concerned about their health due to the spread of COVID-19
• Twice as many adults reported experiencing anxiety, nervousness and restlessness compared to pre-COVID-19 surveillance data
• One in five (22 per cent) reported high levels of loneliness and
• Rates of people reporting severe depression doubled from five per cent to 10 per cent.

After Lifeflow Meditation Centre had to close its doors during the first pandemic lockdown in March last year, it scrambled to provide its members with online support to help them maintain and enhance their meditation practices. As a result, it redesigned its free Come & Try Meditation classes for online access - attracting nearly three times as many people during 2020 as in 2019.

The centre then redeveloped its six-week Learn to Meditate program, which was launched late last year. Learn more at https://meditationacademy.lifeflow.com.au/courses/learn-to-meditate.

Media interviews:

John Burstons available for media interviews to describe how the online course works and explain how the practice of meditation can help people to calm their minds during this  lockdown and the longer-term challenges from the pandemic and other aspects of life. To organise an interview, please call Kath Newland on 08 8379 9001 or John Harris on 08 8431 4000.

Lifeflow Meditation Centre is located at 8/259 Glen Osmond Rd, Frewville SA 5063 and its website is at  www.lifeflow.com.au. Its phone number is 08 8379 9001.

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