What is Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction, aka MBSR? This is the topic of tomorrow night’s Mindfulness Meetup – a taster session being run by Holistic Education CIC.
Substantial research shows that practicing mindfulness regularly can help reduce stress and enhance well-being, confidence and positivity. Mindfulness is essentially a particular way of paying attention, on purpose and non-judgementally that can enhance the awareness of our experiences, moment by moment. One of the best ways to learn to practice mindfulness regularly is to attend an MBSR course.
MBSR was originally developed by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre (USA) in the 1980s. It is a well-researched and evidence-based mindfulness programme that aims to help participants to develop confidence and skills in practicing mindfulness. It consists of eight sessions (each between 2 and 3 hours long) and an additional all-day of practice. It includes theory on how mindfulness works and opportunities to practice. Home practice is an important part of the course and audio files are available to help with this.
Holistic Education runs regular MBSR courses following training by the University of Bangor’s Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice and the UK Network of Mindfulness Teachers Good Practice Guidelines. The next MBSR course will be on Monday evenings from 6:30pm to 9pm from 18 Jan to 14 Mar 2016 (no session on 15 Feb). Included in the course is an Introduction and Orientation session (11 Jan 2016) and a Mindfulness Practice Day, Saturday 6 March 2016, 9am to 3pm.