I did 'eyes-open' meditation with Gwyneth Paltrow...her dulcet tones left me super relaxed - and even slowed my heart rate

Gwyneth Paltrow has declared her love for yet another bizarre, health-related activity. 

The wellness guru, who has also previously peddled fads such as inserting jade eggs into womens' vaginas to improve pelvic floor, invited health influencers and friends to the launch of her new app, Moments of Space.

During the event, which took place via Zoom,  she announced her flirtation with a new wellness habit: eyes-open meditation.

Refraining from shutting your eyes is said to help keep you alert and improve concentration as well as clarity of thought, according to meditation app Calm. 

Buddhists have been practicing a type of eyes-open meditation called Zazen for more than 2000 years.

Gwyneth Paltrow has launched a new app that advocates for meditation with your eyes open

And as well as declaring her love of the practice, the Goop founder invited others attending the event on Zoom to join her in a session. 

One man, journalist Charles Trepany, who took part, has described the experience as eye opening, in a report for USATODAY. 

Paltrow began by explaining the benefits she's gained from eyes-open meditation. Mostly, she loves that you can practice this at any time of the day, while doing other things, wrote Trepany.

'When I'm able to let go of that in a meditation, it brings me a lot of comfort and happiness, I think, because I feel so connected to something bigger than myself and my own thoughts and my own ego,' she said.

The session began with focusing on the breath for a few moments- before the Shakespeare in Love actor asked participants to open their eyes and turn their attention to their environment.

Meditation is usually practiced with closed eyes, especially in western communities, as a way of shutting out the world.

She said: 'As you become aware of this all-encompassing space that is everywhere, allowing everything in your external world to be, notice if you become aware of a similar sense of space within you too, the space that is allowing everything in your internal world to be the space of your own awareness. 

'Don't try to grasp it. Just be there with it, in that moment of space.'

Trepany wrote that he felt 'lost' at this point, thinking instead about his next coffee and his empty stomach. 

Even so, at the conclusion of the practice, he said he left feeling more serene, though not transcendent. 

'I can't say I found oneness − but I did feel calmer. My heart rate felt slower, my breath deeper. I felt relaxed and energized at the same time,' Trepany wrote.

Meditation in general has been shown to have a bevvy of health benefits, from stress reduction to pain management. 

Relatively few scientists have examined the differences between meditating with eyes closed versus eyes opened. 

But one 2020 study by British researchers found that people who meditated with their eyes closed were ultimately more relaxed and experienced less stress than those with their eyes open. 

Paltrow's free app, Moments of Space, aims to teach people eyes-open meditation by offering guided meditations, healthy lifestyle recommendations for your day, and even walking focused meditations. 

Meditation has boomed in popularity over the past decade, tripling in popularity from 2012 to 2017, according to the US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. 

Studies show that those who participate mainly do so with the aim of reducing stress and improving sleep, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.