[This first of two blog posts about mindfulness describes the development of mindfulness from its spiritual roots to an evidence-based mental health intervention. The second post discusses its psychological workings and how it is used in psychotherapy. A therapist can help you bring mindfulness to the center of your therapy or introduce mindfulness as a supporting element in your treatment.]

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a big thing, it has proven effective in scientific studies, is easy to do, cheap, non-pharmaceutical and can be practiced anywhere. Over the past thirty years, mindfulness has grown from an obscure meditative practice to an evidence-based psychotherapeutic intervention and an omnipresence included on every wellness website. The efficacy of mindfulness is scientifically well established, but how did it become so universally recognized? 

Mindfulness defined

Definitions of mindfulness vary depending on whether people take a more spiritual or a more scientific viewpoint of mindfulness.

The dictionary of the American Psychological Association defines mindfulness simply as “Awareness of one’s internal states and surroundings.” (VandenBos, 2007) 

Scientific studies on mindfulness use: “Present-centered awareness of and bare attention to body sensations, affective valence, cognitive and emotional phenomena, and the external environment with an allowing and equanimous attitude.” (Chems-Marif et al., 2025)

Mindfulness pioneer Jon Kabat-Zinn’s definition is most popular by therapists who use mindfulness as an effective therapeutic intervention: “Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally.” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994)

Lastly, Christina Feldman, who teaches Buddhist psychological foundations of mindfulness at universities in Exeter and Rotterdam, applies a much wider definition that highlights the felt and experienced aspects of mindfulness: “What is mindfulness, not a state or technique or a goal in itself, but a response, with care to the moment. How do we meet the moment that we are in?” (Feldman, 2026)

All definitions share that mindfulness is about being aware of thoughts, emotions and our physical body in the here and now.

Mindfulness has its root in religious practices 

Mindfulness has its roots in different religious practices, particularly Buddhism where it’s called Sati.

Sati is one of the eight steps in the eightfold path to attain freedom from suffering that the Buddha developed 2500 years ago. In the mindfulness manual Satipatthana Sutta, (“The discourse on establishing mindfulness””) four steps are described to attain increasing levels of mindfulness. The text, still in use today, describes how to direct awareness (or attention) to four different foci, the physical body, feelings, the mind and mental objects. In Buddhism, mindfulness is always practiced in a wider, spiritually meaningful context. Mindfulness is seen as one link in a greater program to attain freedom from suffering that also includes formal meditation, interpersonal relationships, ethical conduct, and cognitive training. This is different from the West where mindfulness is seen as a practice that directly leads to a neurological or a psychological benefit.

Christianity and Islam

In both Christianity and Islam, mindfulness is most often connected to the contemplation of the presence of God or nature. There are a number of well-known examples that mention mindfulness practices in the Bible. Two Corinthians 10:5 for instance, encourages people to: “take every thought captive” and the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2:1-5 talks about how “Christians are called to be mindful and live in an awareness of the present.”

In an Islamic context, two practices are specifically mentioned in relation to mindfulness. The first is Kushu, which is holding a state of awareness during the five daily prayers, the Salah. This practice includes not just mindfulness itself, but also the mindful performance of physical acts like prostrating and standing up. Muraqabah, is a more general state of awareness of calm and tranquility that includes mindfulness and awareness of one’s own intentions, thoughts, emotions, and inner states.

Meditation in the 60s and 70s

The Western adoption of mindfulness starts in the 1960s with a renewed interest in Buddhism under influence of the experiences of returning American soldiers who were stationed in Japan after World War II and in Vietnam. The first therapeutic mindfulness program was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in the late 1970s at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and called MBSR:  Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. Kabat-Zinn set out to develop a program that would reduce stress and pain symptoms without the need or use of medication. Inspired by his experiences with Buddhism, he finally mapped out a secular, evidence-based 8-week program that is still considered the gold standard in mindfulness interventions today.

The 1980s saw an explosive growth in the number of scientific studies done on the efficacy of mindfulness. Since the 1990s, mindfulness has found a broad application in the West, in hospitals, psychotherapy and in the wellness sector where some mindfulness teachers became mindfulness superstars.

Benefits of mindfulness

Scientific studies have shown that MBI’s (Mindfulness Based Interventions) are highly effective and can benefit client’s health in many different ways. Therapies that take mindfulness as their core intervention have proven beneficial in areas as varied as stress reduction, anxiety, depression, back pain, hypertension, psoriasis, pain conditions, weight control, smoking and addictive disorders (Kabat-Zinn, 2003; Goldberg et al., 2018). Brief mindfulness techniques that include breath exercises, grounding exercises and visualizations are now used as add-ons in most forms of psychotherapy including Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). These techniques are used to improve emotion regulation, distress tolerance, anxiety, self-compassion, and interpersonal effectiveness and to increase the success rate of techniques to treat obsessive compulsions and phobia.

Reference

Chems‑Maarif, R., Cavanagh, K., Baer, R., Gu, J., & Strauss, C. (2025).  Defining Mindfulness: A Review of Existing Definitions and Suggested. Mindfulness, 16, 1-20.

Feldman, C. & Kuyken, W. (2019). Mindfulness: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Psychology, Guilford Publications.

Goldberg, S. B. Tucker, R. P., Greene, P. A., Davidson, R. J., Wampold, B. E., Kearney, K. J., & Simpson, T. L. (2018). Mindfulness-based interventions for psychiatric disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Criminal Psychology Review, 59, 52-60. 

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003). Mindfulness-based Interventions in context: Past, present, and future. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10(2), 144-156. 

VandenBos, G. R. (Ed.). (2007). APA Dictionary of Psychology. American Psychological Association.

— Sander Vink, MACP RP Qualifying