Coronavirus COVID-19 Updates: uc.edu/publichealth
Search By:
MBSR is an intensive, evidence-based course for managing stress, reducing pain, and improving well-being offering a deep dive into mindfulness practices including breath meditation, body scan meditation, and yoga.
The 8-week MBSR course will run from April 5, 2023 through May 24, 2023.
If this class format doesn't meet your needs at this time, view our upcoming 5-Week Series: Practical Tools for Starting a Mindfulness Practice
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is an evidence-based, formal eight-week program including a day-long intensive that was created by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979 at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
The course teaches mindfulness practices (e.g. breath meditation, body scan meditation, yoga), and offers group connection aimed at enhancing self-awareness and self-care in a small, supportive virtual setting. The program is facilitated by UMass-trained MBSR instructor and Clinical Psychologist Meera Murthi, MS, PHD and UC San Diegeo-trained MBSR instructor and Mind-Body Medicine Facilitator Meriden McGraw, MS, MPH.
MBSR can help increase awareness of habitual negative reactions to stress or other stimuli, allowing us to relate to ourselves and the world in a new way. MBSR helps us recognize the moments of choice before reaction to make conscious decisions in the present moment.
MSBR is perfect for people who are ready for a change and ready to invest time and effort to make mindfulness a part of their everyday lives. This is open to all members of the community with varying levels of stress and different life circumstances. It can be used to improve symptoms of a variety of conditions:
Through the cultivation of mindfulness practice, this course supports participants to de-condition stress reactivity and develop new healthy pathways for stress response. Many individuals who participate in MBSR courses also have significant historical, racial, cultural, ethnic, class, and caste-based stress and trauma. While MBSR is not a replacement for trauma-focused psychotherapy, research on mindfulness suggests that mindfulness-based practices activate brain structures that are involved in stress and trauma recovery. In MBSR courses, participants are also invited to cultivate practices in a way that is attentive, sensitive, and responsive to one's emotional, psychological, and physical needs. Core ethics of MBSR courses pertain to non-harming, inclusivity, and reduction of suffering in the lives of participants. In line with this, courses emphasize the exploration and development of choice in mindfulness practices in order to support agency in one's own health and healing. Instructors are committed to bringing awareness to their own racial, cultural, caste, ethnic, and class histories, as well as positions of privilege and oppression in order to work towards safety and inclusivity.
Registration for MBSR is $375 and includes 20 hours of class time and access to email support from the instructors outside of class time for this evidence-based program with over 30 years of research support.
Discounts and Payment Plans Available:
UC Health Associates can earn 200 thrive points for attending this event! Email susan.mcdonald@uc.edu to get your points.
Eligible faculty and staff can earn 1,000+ Be Well UC points in the Virgin Pulse portal with UC’s employee wellness program for attending offerings with the Osher Center for Integrative Health, and earn up to $300 every calendar year. Get started by creating an account or logging in, click the “Home” icon near the top, then, click “Rewards”. Scroll (or search) to the “Participation” category. Click “Attend a UC sponsored event”. Fill out brief from and submit!
Click here tor register for MBSR Spring 2023.
Email susan.mcdonald@uc.edu with questions!
“I have great admiration for the way the instructor taught the class. Not only was she required to work with very different people, coming from very different emotional environments, but she had to do it online. She is exquisitely intuitive to others feelings and states of mind.”
“I had an absolute wonderful experience with the class and it honestly opened my eyes to a whole new level of awareness. The instructor did a great job with being able to formulate the class so that I was able to get as much out of it as everyone else. I felt like I learned something new each week and by the end could tell the difference it made on me.”
“The instructor was wonderful and was very insightful. She practiced what she preached and instead of talking down to us, she made sure that we were on her level and experiencing things like her. This made the course easier to understand and implement because if it wasn't for this perspective, it seems quite daunting. She really communicated well and was always a friendly voice to talk with. She helped facilitate conversation very well and always practiced non-judgment which helped us observe that practice. I was very impressed with the way that she ran the course and overall thought she did a great job.”
“I had a very positive experience. I loved being surrounded by people that were striving to find the same mindfulness that I was.”
"I didn’t think it was going to work, but it works, and I’ve tried all types of methods to relieve stress.”"We began to find who we were and where we are (in life).”"It exceeded my expectations. This type of mindful relaxation is like yoga for the mind.”
The course was coordinated by the Osher Center for Integrative Health at UC, led by MBSR-trained facilitator Dr. Meera Murthi and made possible with funds gifted by the Vijay R. Sanghvi Family Foundation. The gift was designed to provide integrative medicine therapies, such the practice of mindfulness-based stress reduction, to Greater Cincinnati’s under-resourced communities.
The course involves both formal mindfulness practices, such as awareness of breath, sitting, walking meditation, yoga, body scans, and weekly exercises all of which were geared towards cultivating mindfulness and awareness in everyday life.
Medical Sciences Building Suite 4358231 Albert Sabin WayPO Box 670582 Cincinnati, OH 45267-0582
Mail Location: 0582Phone: 513-558-2310Fax: 513-558-3266Email: osher.integrative@uc.edu