Consciousness & Health: The Verb of Health: Consciousness, Complexity & Connection

The Health-ing Podcast hosts Ushma and Thomas speak with Professor Sarah Durston, a neuroscientist focused on consciousness. She explains how her career shifted from searching for psychiatric causes in the brain to exploring consciousness as the foundation of health and well-being.

Professor Durston describes her meditation practice, “Insight Dialogue,” which helps individuals become present, reduce stress, and connect mind and body. She argues that mental and physical health are inseparable, using her experience with celiac disease to illustrate how emotional and physical states influence each other. For her, health is an active “way of being” that requires conscious awareness and daily choices.

She also highlights the power of group meditation, where a shared field of consciousness can emerge, but emphasizes the importance of safety and trust in such settings.

The conversation explores a paradigm shift in science away from strict materialism toward views like idealism and panpsychism, which place consciousness at the center of reality. This shift, she argues, should transform healthcare into a system grounded in human values rather than cost-efficiency, ensuring access to basics like food, exercise, and mental health resources.

Drawing on complexity science, Professor Durston encourages embracing uncertainty, creativity, and “divine play” in understanding life. She concludes with a call to remain open, listen deeply, and trust emergence, reflecting her belief in the unity of science, spirituality, and lived experience.