Harmonies in the boom of a gong are transporting busy brains into a meditative state Leo Cosendai used to be an acutely anxious young man. “I couldn’t cope with taking the train,” he says. “I never felt safe.” So when he moved to London from Switzerland in 2008 to study music, he tried yoga to calm him down. But it was when he discovered gong meditation sessions, otherwise known as sound baths, that he started transforming into the smiley, serene person he is today. He was so deeply affected by the practice that he ditched his singing and composing career, invested in some gongs of his own and embarked on a mission to pass on his newfound contentment to others. “I’m not saying I’m happy all the time,” he qualifies, “but I’m comfortable with life even when it’s really uncomfortable.” To find out exactly why banging a loud gong can have such a transformational effect on mind and body, I try out one of his sessions along with 20 other sound-bath novices. We gather on the top floor of a building near London Bridge with panoramic views of a sunset so dazzling it’s impossible not to sneak a phone snap, even though this feels unmindful and decidedly not in-the-moment. However,

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Anyone who can’t throw, catch, or touch someone without crashing into them like a concussed bull can derail the whole thing. I was that person There is an elbow of the Thames that is so full of sporty types – towpath riddled with joggers, hockey clubs to the left of you, rowers to the right – that by the time I reached the rugby club, I was sort of done with fitness. It’s 8pm on a Wednesday, I thought; when I was the age of these rugby players, I’d have been out drinking for at least three hours by now. But the O2