Mindfulness is based on a type of Buddhist meditation called Vipassana and exists in many religions and traditions. In 1979, Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme to treat the chronically ill. This sparked the application of mindfulness ideas and practices in Medicine for the treatment of a variety of conditions in both healthy and unhealthy people.
Mindfulness is all about learning to paying attention to our life experience with kindness and curiosity. It’s the act of being present in whatever we’re doing, returning our attention to our direct experience. We’re constantly reminiscing, imagining and talking to ourselves. Practicing mindfulness supports us to bring acceptance and non-judgement to our daily life experience. It teaches up to step out of reaction mode when we are in stress. And supports us to feel more at ease and more at peace. It improves our wellbeing, our physical health, our emotional health and our mental health.