A form of meditation or induced relaxation that focuses awareness on breathing and encourages positive attitudes to achieve a healthy, balanced mental state. Mindful meditation is advocated for reducing reactions to stress by inducing the relaxation response, lowering the heart rate, reducing anxiety, and encouraging positive thought patterns and attitudes. Practitioners of mindfulness meditation aim to cultivate self-awareness, and a nonjudgmental, loving, kind, and compassionate feeling toward themselves and others.
Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on whatever a person happens to be experiencing at the time and learning to experience anything calmly, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant. This type of meditation was popularized by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. Traditional meditation involves training the mind on a single point of focus, such as a word or phrase.
A form of non-concentrative meditation in which practitioners adopt a detached observer style along with acceptance of the object of awareness in the present moment.