Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
Essential Skills to Thrive in a Changing World
What Is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is about quieting your mind to see where you’re stuck, what your default reactions are to certain situations, and how you might make new and better choices.
Mindfulness is awareness. Awareness of the immediate experience without letting past experiences and emotions hijack what is happening at this moment.
About The 8-Week Program
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was developed by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979 at the UMass Medical School to help people relate to whatever is happening in their lives with ease, compassion, and clarity. Since then, more than 2,000 academic studies have examined the physiological, psychological, and inter-relational benefits of mindfulness. There is strong evidence showing the structural and functional changes in the brain that take place after this eight-week program for better focus, problem solving, and empathy, among other benefits in the participants.
This is a secular program taught at Downtown Mindfulness by Shalini Bahl, Ph.D. and certified MBSR teacher.
This Course Includes
- An educational program based on experiential learning in a safe environment
- Guided instruction in mindfulness meditation practices
- Gentle stretching & mindful movement
- Group dialogue & discussions aimed at enhancing awareness in everyday life
- A small dose of multimedia to support learning
- Daily home assignments
- Guided audio instructions
- Supporting videos and content
- A day of retreat
- Ongoing support on Teachable.com
- Ongoing support at Downtown Mindfulness including monthly group meditations.
Your Instructor
As the founder of KnowYourMind.training and Affiliated Expert at the Isenberg School of Management, UMass, I am an advocate for mindfulness in business, higher-ed and society. I am committed to integrating the transformative potential of mindfulness in education, business and policy to revitalize classrooms, organizations and communities ( Read our award winning paper in a premier marketing journal). My guided meditations appear on the Simple Habit app and Insight Timer.
With a doctoral degree in marketing from the Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst, my research on self-awareness and mindfulness has been published in premier marketing and public policy journals. Through my organization, KnowYourMind.training, I design and deliver mindfulness-based solutions that address organizational challenges. In my studio, Downtown Mindfulness, I love co-creating a community to promote mindful living. I was recently elected to be District Councilor in the inaugural Town Council in Amherst, MA.
I have been practicing mindfulness for over fifteen years and received professional certification to teach mindfulness from the Center for Mindfulness at UMass Medical School and the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, an mindfulness and emotional intelligence organization born at Google.
When I am not working, I love all kinds of creative projects, cooking, being in nature, meditating and Zumba.