History of Symran.com

On 26th December 1993, Dav Panesar suffered a heart attack and was admitted to Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital. Being Boxing day, the hospital was inundated with patients - with many waiting to be seen in the waiting rooms and their corridors. While he lay waiting for medical attention to remedy the pain and real possibility of death, he practiced his meditation.

His meditation comprised of both mindfulness of breath when possible and mindfulness of internalised sound as mantras. To both his surprise and the surprise of the medical staff, Dav’s physiological signs of blood pressure, heart rate and breathing rate were all influenced during his practice and became erratic and unstable as he withdrew his awareness away from the breath or sound. Dav’s upbringing and teachings in an environment where meditation was a daily part of life across all generations made this an instinctive response to the incredible danger, fear and trauma of a sudden heart attack.

His experience was in fact deeply transformative, this combined with his professional expertise in the development and delivery of bespoke training courses together with his scientific background made him realise the importance of mindfulness meditation in the management of unhealthy states of mind, such as those dominated my stress, anxiety, anger, fear or depression.

Dav, who was encouraged by his own experience and the medical staff at the time, decided to create effective mindfulness based courses to deal with stress, pain and trauma.

Dav has proved to be a pioneer in his research and application of mindfulness in business, work and health for more than 18 years. He has been formally teaching mindfulness since 1995.

Dav Panesar was amongst the first people in the UK to develop and deliver Mindfulness based stress reduction courses through a University.