Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) "can be thought of as a course designed to help people to recognize and mobilize their inner psychological resources for taking better care of themselves...based on relatively intensive training in mindfulness meditation and its applications for coping with stress, pain, and the challenges of everyday life... (Kabat-Zinn, 1993)"
MBSR is an experiential program developed and popularized by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Medical School over the past 25 years. MBSR improves one's ability to effectively regulate the mind, and consequently the emotions, and to a significant degree, physical health. It is used in complementary and alternative medicine programs at a number of universities, including UMass, Stanford, Duke, University of Virginia, University of California at San Francisco and many others around the world. With its focus on the development of non-judgmental awareness of our moment-to-moment experience, MBSR offers a powerful, integrated approach to working with daily physical, emotional and psychological stress, as well as offering powerful coping tools for dealing with chronic pain and debilitating illness.
MBSR typically involves an 8-week group intervention comprised of one pre-class individual meeting, 7 1.5 to 2 hour long classes, and a one-day intensive class; "Refresher classes" can also be offered. Participants receive training in sitting meditation and simple yoga poses. They also learn to develop a new relationship with their thoughts through mindfulness practice. MBSR also emphasizes learning to take an accepting stance to physical body sensations, particularly those associated with stress and pain, and general approaches to healthy living (e.g., diet).
MBSR targets many types of distress, (job stress, family stress, financial stress, chronic pain and illness, anxiety and panic, GI distress, sleep disturbances, fatigue, high blood pressure, headaches). It has been found effective for a variety of problems; see www.umassmed.edu for a review of the research offered by the developers of MBSR.