All over the past year and a half, as the nation’s physical and mental health has been subjected to a historic assault, I have found myself asking many of the people I know for their tips on how we might best hold ourselves together. One word has popped up again and again. The Royal Marine who has built a career advising businesses and the England football team; the New York scientist who is a world expert on women’s brains; and the dog owner looking to calm her pooches — all had one thing in common. They swore by the wonders of meditation. Now science has caught up with what many of us already believed. A study of students in New York state has found that 10 to 15 minutes a day of meditation can boost the brain’s ability to concentrate on tasks. Students at Binghamton University had brain scans after taking up meditation five times a week for eight weeks. These showed changed brain patterns that indicated that the students could switch faster between the state of consciousness in whic...