"By learning how to attend to the breath you're actually teaching yourself how to calm down, and it's almost like a natural tranquilizer. But that's not the most powerful thing that happens. The most powerful thing that happens with meditation is at the same time as you're cultivating calmness, you're also cultivating mindfulness, or deep seeing into what's actually unfolding moment by moment."

--Jon Kabat-Zinn

Medical researcher, meditation teacher and best-selling author Jon Kabat-Zinn discusses a powerful-yet-simple meditative technique known as "mindfulness." The essence of this practice is to calm down and focus only on the present moment -- lifting from us the enormous burden of worrying about the past or future. As emeritus professor of medicine and founder of the renowned Stress Reduction Clinic at the Univ. of Massachusetts Medical School, Dr. Kabat-Zinn has taught tens of thousands of patients Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), with an emphasis on paying attention to the simple act of breathing -- in the present moment.

His books have included "Full Catastrophe Living," "Wherever You Go, There You Are," and "Coming to Our Senses."

More information can be found at the site below:

The Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School

Total time: 1 Hour