MY PSORIASIS VANISHED …THANKS TO MEDITATION

ONE morning Jo Bentley, 59, woke up and immediately noticed blood-red, flaky blotches that travelled the length of her forearm, ending just below her elbow. Within days the rash had spread to her other arm, and feet.

‘My hands looked like they’d been through a shredder,’ recalls the former marketing executive, below. ‘It became so painful I could barely walk. Even getting shoes and socks on was a struggle.’

The eventual diagnosis of psoriasis came as a shock. ‘I thought it might be a freak reaction to my washing powder,’ she recalls.

Over the course of two years, consultant dermatologists prescribed a series of treatments including creams and UV light therapies, all of which proved unsuccessful.

Never did the mother-of-two consider that the plague of red, angry spores may be related to the ‘deeply upsetting’ family trauma that occurred just months before symptoms appeared. But when Jo crossed paths with a psychologist in the hospital waiting room, she was introduced to the surprising link between skin and emotional distress. ‘He asked if I’d heard of mindfulness. I was desperate to try anything at this point so I thought, why not?’ Miraculously, after just three months of mindfulness sessions, at least once daily, the sore skin patches vanished. She says: ‘Regular meditation calmed my entire system. Both my psoriasis and my bouts of depression vanished.’ Now, 15 years on, Jo teaches schoolchildren and NHS patients about the role of mindfulness in treating a range of physical illnesses, from cancer and chronic pain, to migraine. She says: ‘Thanks to mindfulness, neither the traumatic event nor my skin stings like they used to. They’re both just a part of my history.’