About MBSR 

 

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is an evidence-based, eight-week program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979 at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  It combines mindfulness meditation, body awareness, gentle yoga, and group inquiry. MBSR has been widely studied and shown to improve mental and physical health, including reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression, lowering blood pressure, managing stress, and enhancing emotional regulation.  

MBSR is secular and non-religious, drawing from Buddhist meditation traditions but adapted for modern clinical and wellness settings. The classes are taught in a structured format, with weekly 2-2.5-hour sessions and a silent retreat day between weeks six and seven. Daily home practice (about 45 minutes) is a key component. 

Through regular training in mindfulness that an MBSR course offers students become familiar with their own behavior patterns, especially in relations to stressful situations.  Students also learn that though circumstances in which they find themselves cannot change, they can choose how to respond to them.  MBSR involves learning about stress, and developing a different relationship with stress through the practice of awareness.   

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The Benefits of MBSR 

Scientific research at medical and research centers around the world suggests that MBSR can 
positively and often profoundly affect participants' lives in the following ways:  

o   Stress reduction 

o   Decreased medical symptoms 

o   Changes in the relationship to pain 

o   Improved self-care 

o   Greater ability to manage anxiety and depression 

o   Loosening of the grip of negative habits and thinking 

o   Improvement in symptoms of burnout 

o   Clearer recognition of when your attitude or mood is beginning to change so you can become less reactive 

o   Discovery that difficult and unwanted thoughts and feelings can be seen from an altogether different perspective – a perspective that brings with it a sense of compassion and less judgment to the suffering you are experiencing 

o   Living with greater calmness, clarity, energy, and enthusiasm 

o   Improved sense of well-being and learning how to be present and appreciate the simple pleasures of everyday life, connect with yourself, and the experience of being alive