We live in strange times. Forty million westerners practice the ancient Indian art of yoga, a practice dedicated to world transcendence and Self-realisation. These contemporary yogins, the vast majority of them focused exclusively on the physical practice, have generated a billion dollar industry in yoga goods and services, including designer yoga clothes and equipment, yoga cruises with the stars, exotic yoga holidays, yoga DVDs and magazines, and so on. Just leaf through an

Calming the mind may be exactly what you need for better health. Mindfulness is an effective tool against compulsive habits like binge eating because it interrupts automatic behaviors. It enables you to see and understand your actions without judging them, short-circuiting the process that connects stress to comfort eating. In a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, researchers tracked the eating patterns of 140 binge eaters and found that using mindfulness-based