Practices · MBSR
What Is MBSR?
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is an eight-week educational program, not a single technique or app feature. Here's where it came from, what it involves, and how it relates to the guided meditations in this app.
A brief history
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., founded Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in 1979 at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, where he was the founder and former director of the Stress Reduction Clinic. His research through 2002 focused on mind/body interactions and clinical applications of mindfulness training for people living with chronic pain and stress-related conditions. The clinic he founded grew into the UMass Chan Center for Mindfulness, which continues to teach MBSR today.
What the eight-week program involves
MBSR is taught as a structured course, typically run over eight weeks with a trained instructor. It generally combines weekly group sessions with daily home practice, and it's built around a small set of core practices: the Body Scan, sitting meditation, and gentle mindful yoga. Many programs also include one longer, all-day session partway through the course. The aim isn't to relax on demand or empty the mind, but to build a steadier, more direct relationship with present-moment experience — including the difficult parts.
General mindfulness practice vs. the MBSR course
It's worth being precise here: listening to a guided meditation — in this app or any other — is a form of mindfulness practice, but it is not the same as completing an instructor-led MBSR course. The full program includes structured weekly instruction, group discussion, and guidance from a qualified teacher, which a self-guided recording can't replicate. If you're interested in the complete curriculum, the UMass Chan Center for Mindfulness is its academic home.
MBSR practices in the JKZ Meditations app
The app's Coping with Stress series — labeled Series 1 in the app — draws directly on the formal MBSR curriculum. It includes four 45-minute guided practices: the Body Scan Meditation, Mindful Yoga 1, Sitting Meditation, and Mindful Yoga 2. These are the same lengths and forms used in the eight-week course, offered here as standalone recordings rather than as a taught program. The Body Scan from this series is one of the app's four free meditations — see the Body Scan guide for more on how it works.
Where to go from here
- New to sitting practice? Start with Mindfulness for Beginners.
- Curious about the Body Scan specifically? Read the Body Scan Meditation guide.
- Living with pain or illness? See Mindfulness for Pain.
- Want the exact track list? The Knowledge Base has the full MBSR track list in the app.