To support the integration of mindfulness-based practices into the clinical, educational and research programs of the UVA Health System and the central Virginia community.

COMPASSION: We seek to approach all our relationships with colleagues, patients, students, and staff in a compassionate manner.

BALANCE: We seek to model and teach others to instill balance between their personal and work lives and to apply this to our own lives.

INNOVATION: We seek to embody the human traits of creativity and curiosity in our work.

In today’s fast-paced world, stress affects us in many ways. How we respond to stress directly affects our health and well-being.

Regardless of whether our stress is based in work pressures, financial security, relationships, health problems, or internal pressures such as self-criticism and perfectionism, we can develop skills to effectively improve the quality of our lives.

The UVA Mindfulness Center offers intensive training courses to develop mindfulness skills - the practice of focusing our attention on our inner experience at the moment that it is happening. By practicing these skills, we learn to be more "awake," more alert to the moments of our life as they unfold. Being present to our life increases our opportunities to make conscious choices.

Our courses can benefit anyone who is ready to take his or her health and well-being seriously and to commit to practices that help us see more clearly and live more fully. Mindfulness is a sensible, straightforward way to experience the mind/body connection.

"A feeling is a number of physiological sensations... I honestly couldn’t have described how I experienced emotions before this class. I probably would have told you they were a mental event. I developed a kinder internal voice to use with myself and can be aware of things without judging them." - MBSR class participant

Mindfulness training has benefited people experiencing a wide variety of conditions including:

• Stress (job, family, financial, or health)
• Anxiety and panic
• Sleep disturbances
• High blood pressure
• Chronic pain
• Depression
• Gastrointestinal symptoms
• Fatigue
• Headaches