While reading the newspaper the other day, I came across an article on a technique that learned through the close examination of dried fruit could lead to a break through treatment to ward off serious depression.

Called the "raisin consciousness", the first lesson in the program uses the raisin as a way to learn meditation techniques that makes you more aware of the physical world and your own thoughts.

The study is currently been conducted by a psychiatric team from Monash University and Southern Health, Australia. Professor Graham Meadows, Project Leader for the study states that the "mindfulness" techniques were first developed in Canada and Britain in the 1980s and are more recently developed into clinical techniques that address depression.

The use of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, or MBCT for short, is about holding your thoughts lightly, not changing the content of the (negative) thought but changing your personal relationship to the thought. Unlike the traditional cognitive therapy that trains the mind to notice negative thoughts that might provoke depression, face those thoughts, debate them and try to change their content.

So far 140 people, randomised between MBCT and a control group, have been involved in the trial. The results have been encouraging so far with participant referring to the technique as "changed their life" as they are able to pick up signs of depression earlier and "step in" to set the thoughts back on a rational track.

(Source: The Age dated November 03, 2008)