The History of Mindfulness

land and skyThe history of Mindfulness dates back to the early, core philosophies of Buddhism however it was a man named Jon Kabat-Zinn who brought it to the Western World in the 1980s as an alternative, natural way to manage stress and illness.

Kabat-Zinn is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts who studied the effects of meditation on the immune system and brain, in particular, how it could improve the severity and occurrence of chronic pain and psychological disorders.

Today, Kabat-Zinn and his colleagues at the Centre for Mindfulness conduct training internationally for health professionals, business leaders and those wishing to teach Mindfulness.

Kabat-Zinn’s methods are now so widely regarded that many leading universities across the globe have joined the Centre for Mindfulness, including our own, world-renowned Oxford University.

Oxford University’s Department of Psychology is now an international centre of excellence in Mindfulness and, through charitable funding, has led the way in clinical and neuro-scientific research into the efficacy of mindfulness on the human mind and body.

To find out more about the results from Oxford University’s studies, please read: Mindfulness: The Evidence.