The negative effects of chronic stress and their impact on the quality of our lives is well documented. Unchecked, our physical responses to stress can lead to poor health, and yet can often go unnoticed until symptoms or situations bring them to the forefront.
What if there were a scientifically researched way to change our relationship to stress using mind and body awareness, to participate in our own self-care, and to contribute wholeheartedly to our own growth and development as human beings?
The story of the Center for Mindfulness (CFM) begins in the 1970’s at UMass Memorial Medical Center, where Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, began the original Stress Reduction clinic that soon developed into Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), and the Center made its home at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. Since that time, more than 25,000 people have completed this groundbreaking 8-Week program with CFM and have worked with their own internal resources and abilities to respond more effectively to stress, pain, and illness. Acquiring and building on mindful awareness during the weekly sessions and with home practice, participants utilize mindfulness meditation, simple and gentle body movement, and group discussion of experience to begin to integrate this awareness into the challenges and adventures of everyday life.
In 2014 the program began to be offered online, bringing it from Worcester to the world. Online meeting technology was found to integrate very well with the real-time group experience of MBSR that had been transforming lives for 35 years. In June 2019, the Center for Mindfulness transitioned back to UMass Memorial Health, and began its next chapter with renewed purpose and promise. We continue the commitment to offer this program, established more than 40 years ago right here in Worcester, MA, to benefit the lives of participants across the world.
Take action. Engage in your own self-care. Live your best life, right now, today.
