Mindfulness-based stress reduction

Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is an educational program designed for learning mindfulness and discovering skillful ways to manage stress.^[1][2] MBSR was developed in the late 1970s by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The eight-week course combines mindfulness meditation, body awareness, and yoga to help individuals manage stress, pain, and illness.^[3] Although widely applied in clinical settings and researched for its benefits on well-being, MBSR is classified as an educational intervention rather than a form of psychotherapy.

MBSR incorporates a blend of mindfulness meditation, body awareness, yoga, and the exploration of patterns of behavior, thinking, feeling, and action.^[4][5] Mindfulness can be understood as the non-judgmental acceptance and investigation of present experience, including body sensations, internal mental states, thoughts, emotions, impulses and memories, in order to reduce suffering or distress and to increase well-being.^[4][6]

Mindfulness meditation is a method by which attention skills are cultivated, emotional regulation is developed, and rumination and worry are significantly reduced.^[6][7][4][8] During the past decades, mindfulness meditation has been the subject of more controlled clinical research, which suggests its potential beneficial effects for mental health,^{[9][10][11][12]} athletic performance,^[13][14] as well as physical health.^[15][16][17] While MBSR has its roots in wisdom teachings of Zen Buddhism, Hatha Yoga, Vipassana and Advaita Vedanta, the program itself is secular.^[4][18] The MBSR program is described in detail in Kabat-Zinn's 1990 book Full Catastrophe Living.^[4]