Breaditation shows how making bread can help us to combat anxiety, elevate our mood, improve our self-esteem and de-stress - also how to make delicious bread!

Manuel Monade is a professional baker who has been helping refugees for over twenty years through his charitable work; Caroline Harrison is a cognitive behavioural therapist with twenty years' experience, working for the NHS at the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma at the Maudsley Hospital in London. Together they wanted to run a therapeutic bread-making workshop for refugees who had been through traumatic experiences.

In Breaditation they show how the four stages of bread making - kneading, proving, shaping and baking - are inherently good for mental wellbeing. Bread making, because it involves all our senses - sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing - can help us to focus on and feel safe in the present, which helps to combat anxiety, elevate our mood, improve our self-esteem and, through a mindful focus on the present, de-stress. Even if you feel simply angry or upset, bread making can help.

Here are over twenty straightforward recipes, from ciabatta and pitta to brioche, crackers and sourdough. There is nothing too technically demanding, so that there is an immediate sense of achievement and pleasure in the bread you have made.