Tasmania is famous for its natural beauty, fresh air and quiet lifestyle, so it makes perfect sense that people wanting a calming retreat would rate the destination highly.
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Meditation groups, yoga studios and wellness centres have long been popping up across the state, with a significant increase in the past five years.
With that in mind, Stephanie Legg England, who recently opened Hillwood Road Meditation Skills Centre in North East Tasmania, believes the state could introduce a meditation trail. Other holistic therapists have come on board, saying Tasmania could become known as the “wellness state” or “meditation state.
“Tasmania scores higher than the national average on wellness scores for satisfaction. We also score high for sense of community connection, empowerment, trust and sense of safety.”
Stephanie’s own story is a good example of the benefits of meditation. She tried it for the first time in 2000 when her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He died when their daughters were two and three years old.
“My youngest has a chromosome disorder, and that means she has multiple disabilities, including a severe intellectual disability and my older daughter was very restless and clingy as a child.”
The plot thickened when her daughters were in primary school, and the eldest went from being just restless and clingy to being very anxious and complaining about physical discomfort, including stomach aches and migraines.
“In the end, she was missing so much school that I ended up homeschooling her when she was in high school. A couple of years after starting that, we found out she had a life-threatening brain malformation and needed brain surgery.
“My meditation was fabulous for keeping me going - to raise my spirits everyday, to give me new ideas for how to cope and to just give me some hope that maybe my life was going somewhere.
“So what ended up happening is I became passionate about meditation and decided I wanted to teach it. As soon as I got the opportunity to move to North East Tasmania, I thought, perfect, I’ll set up a meditation centre.”
Hillwood Road centre opened in December, with meditation groups beginning this month.
Holistic therapist Megan Townsend works at The Quiet Cone in Latrobe, which offers visitors sound relaxation therapy and a number of natural therapies.
“It’s a great idea to promote ourselves as the ‘wellness state’,” Megan said. “We really have the perfect environment - fresh air and beautiful scenery, that creates that state of relaxation.”
Megan said she had noticed a “huge increase” in meditation centres, yoga studios and wellness retreats in Tasmania during the past five years, especially in rural areas like the North-West.
“The health paradigm over the last 20 years is not working – people are still dealing with anxiety and other issues. I think the general public has realised how important meditation and relaxation are. They are needed in conjunction with Western medicine.
“There are so many studies coming out now proving the benefits to cognitive awareness, preventing dementia and a number of other things. There was always a community of people into holistic therapies in Tasmania, but you had to know where to find it. It has become much more accepted in the last few years.”
Stephanie said if there was a meditation trail advertised in brochures, people might be interested in dropping into centres and looking around, while enjoying some of the other serene highlights around Tasmania.
“We could have a lot of interest in meditation tourism if we really went for it. We’ve got the full recipe – we’ve got the beautiful environment, we’ve got the low number of traffic lights.
“I haven’t done the leg work for a meditation tourism trail, so I would love people to give me pointers on what’s the best route to take.”
Tranquil Point CEO Ben Boyle agrees. He offers Bikram yoga retreats with access to private beaches and three acres of property with an organic shop and vegetable garden in Tasmania’s South.
“Tranquil Point retreats offer the opportunity to get back to nature through yoga and meditation. Tasmania, with the cleanest air in the world, first-class produce, natural beauty and laid back lifestyle can definitely be known as the ‘meditation state’. A meditation trail is a fantastic idea and it would attract many mainland visitors looking for a break and looking to escape the madness of their everyday life.”
Tasmania, with the cleanest air in the world, first-class produce, natural beauty and laid back lifestyle can definitely be known as the ‘meditation state’.
- Ben Boyle
Stephanie said researchers had been exploring the health benefits of meditation for more than 50 years.
“The first thing that’s obvious is when people start meditating, they relax physically. Their heart rate and blood pressure goes down. Then there have been a lot of studies showing the long-term benefits of meditation for a variety of psychological and physical conditions. And now that we’ve got sophisticated neurological research techniques, we can also see how the brain changes over time with meditation practice.
“In all the conditions that have been studied, there have been a lot of positive findings. There are three that come up over and over again, and it’s now regarded as quite conclusive that you can recommend meditation for anyone who suffers from depression, anxiety or high blood pressure.”
