Vidyamala Burch is a mindfulness teacher, author and Founder of mindfulness organisation Breathworks. Vidyamala began teaching her mindfulness approach for managing pain and illness following her own journey of living with health challenges. After sustaining serious spinal injuries that left her with partial paraplegia, she began to explore mindfulness as a way to manage her condition and she found the results to be life changing.

In 2004, she developed the world’s first Mindfulness-based Pain Management (MBPM) programme which is now taught globally by Breathworks and has reached over 100,000 people. Through her work, Vidyamala passes on the tools for living well with pain, illness and stress that have helped her reclaim a full and rich life. Vidyamala is passionate about making mindfulness accessible to everyone, to this end Breathworks is a charitable foundation that provides bursaries and scholarships to those who are financially limited.

At the start of the pandemic, Vidyamala and Breathworks created a free toolkit of mindfulness resources for key workers and those suffering with stress and anxiety which have been used by over 10,000 people globally. Recognising the benefits of Vidyamala’s Mindfulness for Health approach for managing symptoms of long COVID, the NHS asked her to contribute to an app that will be made available to long COVID patients later this year.

Vidyamala is an award-winning author of three books in over 14 languages, and an Honorary Member of the British Pain Society in recognition of her contribution to the field of pain management.