Mindfulness Talks

Mindfulness is a cognitive skill, generally developed through mental exercises, of sustaining metacognitive awareness towards the contents of one's own experiences including bodily sensations in the present moment. The term mindfulness derives from the Pali word sati, a significant element of Buddhist traditions, and the practice is based on ānāpānasati, Chan, and Tibetan meditation techniques.

Since the 1990s, secular mindfulness has gained popularity in the West. Individuals who have contributed to the popularity of secular mindfulness in the modern Western context include Jon Kabat-Zinn and the "father of mindfulness" Thích Nhất Hạnh.

Clinical psychology and psychiatry since the 1970s have developed a number of therapeutic applications based on mindfulness for helping people experiencing a variety of psychological conditions. Clinical studies have documented mental health benefits of mindfulness as well as physical health benefits in different patient categories and in healthy adults and children.

Mindfulness research has long attracted criticism, particularly in its early decades, due to concerns about limited methodological rigor and weaknesses in study design. However, the field has since progressed substantially. For instance, a large-scale meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (encompassing 142 studies and more than 12,000 participants) found that mindfulness-based therapies show considerable promise as evidence-based treatments. Another extensive study sought to rigorously evaluate the empirical status of mindfulness-based interventions by systematically reviewing the available meta-analytic literature. Drawing on 44 meta-analyses encompassing 336 randomized controlled trials with over 30,000 participants, the authors concluded that these interventions demonstrate substantial transdiagnostic potential, while also noting how the evidence base could be further strengthened. Further, research also indicates that second-generation mindfulness-based interventions that incorporate compassion-based practices may be especially significant for clinical populations.

From Mindfulness on Wikipedia