The 31 people arranged themselves in a circle, some in chairs, their spines erect, others kneeling or lying on the floor.

Among them was a veterinarian, a financial planner, a school administrator, a child psychotherapist and a legislative aide.

Take a moment to recognize whats going on with your mind, class leader Carmen Alonso encouraged them, after dimming the lights and ringing a meditation bell. Check in with yourself just as you would with your best friend. Hows it going?

With that, the monthly drop-in session of UW Healths Mindfulness Program was off to a soothing start. All of the participants had, at some point in the past, completed an intensive, eight-week curriculum called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). This was a refresher, a tuneup.

While it may have looked like nothing much was going on in the room, researchers have learned quite the opposite. The participants were changing their brains in scientifically demonstrable ways, strengthening areas that would help them understand themselves and others better and allow them to respond with more resilience to lifes challenges.

If I tried to do my job without the mindfulness skills I have, I think it would probably kill me, said Mark Knickelbine, 56, of Mount Horeb, an aide to a state senator and one of the people at the drop-in session.

Especially when the Legislature is in session, he bounces from one thing to another all day in an intensely partisan environment, dealing with people who also are under a great deal of stress.

Through mindfulness training, he learned his thoughts dont always give him a true picture of a situation.

As I notice signs of stress rising in my body, Im able to step back from that and say, OK, this is going on now, Knickelbine said. Its just that simple ability to recognize it instead of reinforcing it and making it worse.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, a professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the developer of MBSR in 1979, has defined mindfulness as the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose to the present moment, non-judgmentally. Although its an ancient practice, its on a modern-day roll.

See more here:
With mindfulness meditation, the world doesn't necessarily change, your reactions to it do