One-minute guide to mindfulness
LEGEND has it that the Buddha sat under a Bodhi tree in India for 49 days straight before achieving enlightenment. Some Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programmes today pledge to get you close after just a dozen or so sessions.
In its current form, mindfulness owes its existence largely to Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn, who earned his PhD in molecular biology from MIT in 1971, according to his website. He began fusing secularised, Buddhist-influenced meditative techniques with contemporary medical practices to help patients with chronic pain in the 1970s, and the idea has gone global since.
The method is often summed up as the quest to pay “attention to purpose, moment by moment, without judging”, which is apparently achieved by focusing on your breathing, to take one example. Get it right and the mind becomes empty of critical thoughts and other sources of stress. A study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University released earlier this year found that focusing your mind in this way can produce measureable improvements in the symptoms of stress, depression and anxiety.
But not everyone’s convinced, and some instructors are better value for money than others. So be mindful when splashing out on a £30 starter CD.