[LUM#12] Meditating Beyond Suffering
Treating—and curing—certain childhood ailments through meditation. That is the promise Professor Tu-Anh Tran has kept. The pediatrician has developed a meditation method tailored to children that yields spectacular results and sometimes even eliminates the need for commonly prescribed medications.
Alex is 9 years old, and it’s not easy for him. He’s very anxious and impulsive. He has severe tics: he scrapes his tongue until it bleeds, makes sudden head movements, and trips himself up… Sometimes he lets loose with a barrage of swear words. At home, bedtime triggers uncontrollable anxiety; he screams and bangs his head against his bed. At school, Alex has trouble reading, understanding, and concentrating. He fidgets a lot. Alex has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.
So Alex’s parents took him to see Prof. Tu-Anh Tran, head of the pediatrics department at Nîmes University Hospital…Two months later, the tics had disappeared. And while an occasional swear word or trip might still slip out, Alex is much calmer and more composed. How did Tu-Anh Tran treat Alex? Through meditation! “Meditating means observing what’s happening in your body and mind to understand the processes within yourself,” explains the pediatrician, who has been meditating himself for 30 years. “From this observation comes the understanding that allows us to resolve the physical or psychological blockages that cause suffering.”
Observe what is happening in your body and mind
When he met young Alex, the doctor observed that his mind was racing, but his body was slower. That’s why his body couldn’t keep up with his thoughts: he fidgeted, fell, stuttered, and had tics. “Through meditation, I helped him slow down his mind and relax his body so he could better coordinate his movements and thoughts and regain a sense of harmony in his movements, ” explains Tu-Anh Tran, who created a university degree program in Meditation and Health.
The practice of meditation spread throughout the Western world in the 1980s, with the rise of mindfulness. Starting around that time, some child psychologists began introducing this practice to their young patients. “It was a failure,” explains Tu-Anh Tran, “because the way they presented meditation from an intellectual perspective wasn’t at all suited to children. With children, there’s no need for words—everything is conveyed through bodily sensation.”
Spectacular Results
And Tu-Anh Tran knows all too well what children go through. Ten years ago, the doctor was working at Bicêtre Hospital. As a specialist in pediatric inflammatory and rheumatic diseases, he treated young patients with algodystrophy or fibromyalgia, who were in constant pain. “Pain that sometimes couldn’t even be relieved by medication, ” explains the pediatrician. So she began offering meditation sessions to these children. “The results were spectacular,” recalls Tu-Anh Tran.“ The children were in much less pain and were regaining their motor skills.”
To achieve this kind of improvement, the pediatrician developed a meditation practice specifically tailored to children. It’s a two-phase method. The first goal: to calm down. “To do this, children start by practicing mindful breathing. They focus solely on their breathing, which helps them refocus. The mind returns to the body and to the present moment, without wandering between the future and the past.”
Facing Suffering to Heal
Once the children have experienced the power of conscious breathing to focus the mind, Professor Tran moves on to the second phase. “Calming oneself allows one to better cope with suffering in order to achieve healing; this is a phase that is all too often neglected in Western meditation practice, and yet it is what brings about healing.” And the doctor has treated many children.
Physical pain, stress, concentration difficulties, learning disabilities, hyperactivity, eating disorders, anxiety, sleep disorders, academic failure, dropping out of school, depression, phobias, chronic illnesses, inflammatory and autoimmune conditions, acute and chronic pain… The list of ailments that can be alleviated through meditation is long. “Sometimes this practice can even reduce or completely eliminate the need for medication, ” the doctor explains.
She also helps restore balance to families that are sometimes strained by their child’s difficulties. “Many parents come to see me saying, ‘ I’ve tried everything!’ They are the first to be surprised by the changes that occur through the practice of meditation.” ” And they’re not the only ones: Alex’s principal was so impressed by his progress that she asked Tu-Anh Tran to teach her meditation techniques to the teachers so they could practice them with their students…
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