Bill Roache taught ‘This Morning’ viewers a simple meditation technique to deal with coronavirus stress and fears.
The ‘Coronation Street’ actor – who has been practising meditation for around four decades – told people watching the ITV daytime show on Monday (23.03.20) that "fear is only a lack of love" as he led hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby through the process.
Appearing from his home in Cheshire, Bill – who is currently in self-isolation amid the ongoing pandemic – said: "To get yourself into a quiet state, a peaceful state, this is what I do. I find a place – and I’m actually sitting it in now in my conservatory – where you know it’s peaceful and quiet, you’re not going to be interrupted, turn off your phones and your iPad.
"You’re going to have a break, and as you walk towards that place, leave all the cares and worries and fears behind. You’ve going to have a tea break from life. You get to this place, you need a chair that you can sit upright but comfortably in. You sit down, and you can’t not think.
"What you want to think about is your breathing, and you want to balance your breathing nice and smoothly. I like to think of the gentle waves on the seashore. As they come in, you breath in, as they go out, you breath out."
The 87-year-old star pointed out that while people know to look after their health by drinking water, getting enough sleep and eating the right things, it is just as important to take care of your mental health.
Opening up on other issues, he explained: "Mainly, the life we’ve been living in the world today has been full of stress. That’s one hard thing to deal with, and of course the current situation, there’s fear.
So those two things are pretty difficult to deal with, and meditation is a discipline whereby you learn to only think about what you wish to think about and get into your inner true, loving self and radiate that out."