Mindfulness means paying attention to what's happening right now, in your body, your mind and the world around you, without immediately judging it. You notice a thought as a thought, a feeling as a feeling, the taste of your coffee as a taste, instead of being carried off by them. You can practice it in a formal meditation or in a normal moment of your day, like climbing the stairs or eating lunch.
Below: common definitions, how mindfulness differs from meditation, a 3-minute first practice, what MBSR is, what psychology research says and where it has limits.
Mindfulness meaning: three common definitions
There isn't one official definition. Germany's federal health portal gesund.bund.de says the term "is used in different contexts and is not uniformly defined." Three descriptions are used most often:
| Source | Definition |
|---|---|
| Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of MBSR | "Awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally." |
| NCCIH (US National Institutes of Health) | "Maintaining attention or awareness on the present moment without making judgments." |
| NHS | "Paying attention to what is going on inside and outside ourselves, moment by moment." |
What they share: attention (you choose where it goes), the present (now, not yesterday or tomorrow) and an open attitude (noticing before judging). Mindfulness is not a relaxation technique in the narrow sense. gesund.bund.de puts it this way: relaxation can happen, but it isn't the main point; the point is a more conscious way of dealing with your own experience.
Mindfulness vs meditation
The words are often used as if they meant the same thing. They overlap, but they're not identical.
| Mindfulness | Meditation | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A quality of attention | A formal practice that trains attention |
| When | Any moment of the day | A set time, often sitting or lying |
| Examples | Tasting your food, feeling your feet while walking, hearing the rain | Breath meditation, body scan, mantra, guided visualization |
| Overlap | Mindfulness meditation trains mindfulness on purpose | Not every meditation is a mindfulness meditation |
Our guide what is meditation? explains meditation in more depth, and types of meditation shows where mindfulness meditation sits among the others.
What is mindfulness meditation and how do you do it?
Mindfulness meditation means sitting (or lying) for a while and paying attention to something in the present, most often the breath, sounds or sensations in the body. When your attention drifts to thoughts, which it will, you notice that and gently come back. The NHS describes it as "sitting silently and paying attention to thoughts, sounds, the sensations of breathing or parts of your body, bringing your attention back whenever the mind starts to wander."
A 3-minute mindfulness practice
We put together this short practice for a first try. Read it once, then do it from memory.
- Minute 1: Arrive. Sit so that your back is supported. Feel where your body touches the chair and the floor. Notice three things you can hear, near or far, without naming what makes the sound.
- Minute 2: Breath. Rest your attention on the breath where you feel it most clearly: the nose, the chest or the belly. You don't need to change it. Each time your mind wanders, say "thinking" silently and come back to the next breath.
- Minute 3: Widen. Let your attention include your whole body sitting here, then the room. Ask: "What's here right now?" Notice one thought, one feeling, one body sensation. Then open your eyes, or look up, and continue your day.
If your mind wandered fifty times, you practiced fifty times. That isn't a failure: coming back is the exercise. More on this in our guide to thoughts during meditation.
Formal and informal mindfulness practice
The NHS distinguishes two ways to practice:
- Formal practice: setting aside time for a meditation, like the 3 minutes above or a longer guided session. The NHS also mentions yoga and tai chi as ways to build awareness of your breathing.
- Informal practice: bringing the same attention to ordinary moments, like "the feel of a banister as we walk upstairs", the food you eat or the air on your skin while you walk.
Both help each other. The formal practice trains the muscle, and the everyday moments are where you use it. Our list of 12 small moments for mindfulness in daily life has ideas to start with.
The attitudes behind mindfulness
In his MBSR program, Jon Kabat-Zinn describes several attitudes that go with mindfulness practice, among them non-judging, patience, beginner's mind, trust, non-striving, acceptance and letting go. They're less rules than directions: approaching an experience with curiosity instead of wanting it to be different right away.
Letting go is the one people ask about most. It doesn't mean pushing thoughts or feelings away, which tends to make them come back stronger. We explain the difference in our guide on how to let go.
What is mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)?
MBSR is a structured course, not an app or a single technique. Jon Kabat-Zinn founded it in 1979 at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, originally for patients with chronic illness. According to the standard description of the program (Kabat-Zinn's book Full Catastrophe Living, as summarized in Wikipedia's MBSR article):
- It runs for eight weeks, with weekly group meetings of about 2.5 hours and a one-day silent retreat, usually between weeks six and seven.
- The main practices are mindfulness meditation, body scanning and simple yoga.
- Participants practice at home daily, about 45 minutes.
- Group discussions help apply mindfulness to stressful situations in everyday life.
A related program, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), combines mindfulness practice with elements of cognitive behavioral therapy, NCCIH explains. MBCT is a therapy and is taught by trained professionals.
What is mindfulness in psychology?
In psychology, mindfulness is studied both as a trait (how mindful someone tends to be) and as a trainable skill. Here is what official health sources say, in their own terms:
- The NHS says studies show that mindfulness "can help with stress, anxiety and depression", and that more research is needed for other conditions. It notes that mindfulness-based therapies are recommended by NICE, the health guidance body for England, as a way to treat less severe depression.
- gesund.bund.de says MBSR "has proven effective for stress reduction in numerous studies."
- NCCIH summarizes research on specific uses, for example that MBSR was associated with short-term improvement in low-back pain in a 2020 report.
These are findings from structured programs, often eight weeks long, not from a few minutes with an app. They also don't mean mindfulness replaces treatment.
Is mindfulness safe?
For most people, yes, but not for everyone in every situation. NCCIH says meditation and mindfulness "usually are considered to have few risks", while few studies have looked at harms. A 2020 review of 83 studies found negative effects, most often anxiety and depression, in about 8 percent of participants, which is similar to what's reported for psychological therapies. The NHS says plainly: "Many people find mindfulness helpful, but it's not right for everyone. Some people find that it does not help them or that it can make them feel worse."
Practical rules of thumb: start short, keep your eyes open if closing them feels uneasy, and stop if a practice regularly leaves you feeling worse.
Mindfulness sessions in the app
If you'd like to try mindfulness with guidance, AI Meditation: Sleep & Calm has several sessions built around it:
- Breath Awareness uses the natural breath as an anchor. Its description says the core takes about 5 to 6 minutes and can be extended with optional sections.
- Grounded in the Now: Presence Through Body and Breath works with body contact, sounds and the breath, and practices coming back when thoughts wander.
- Mindful Observation: Waking the Senses uses an object or a sound in your surroundings as the anchor.
- Unhooking From Thoughts: Stepping Out of the Rumination Loop teaches three steps: notice, briefly name, kindly return.
- What Is Meditation? is an introduction with small first practices.
Each session has a length range, and you choose a length within it before you start; the library sessions start at about 5 minutes. The voices are AI voices, and the daily meditation is written by AI after a short check-in. The app is in English and German. See how the app works, try it for free, no account needed.
Your health
This app is a wellness app and does not replace medical advice. Mindfulness is not a treatment on its own. If stress, worry or low mood last for weeks or affect your day, talk to a doctor. The NHS page on mindfulness explains what it can and can't do.
Sources
All pages accessed on September 25, 2026.
- NHS: Mindfulness (page last reviewed August 17, 2026). Definition, formal and informal practice, NICE recommendation, "not right for everyone".
- NCCIH: Meditation and Mindfulness: Effectiveness and Safety (last updated June 2022). Definition, MBSR and MBCT, low-back pain, the 2020 review on negative effects.
- gesund.bund.de (German Federal Ministry of Health): Entspannungsmethoden (as of March 27, 2026, in German). Achtsamkeit "not uniformly defined", not a relaxation technique in the narrow sense, MBSR and stress reduction.
- Mindful: Jon Kabat-Zinn: Defining Mindfulness (2017). Kabat-Zinn's definition, MBSR founded in 1979.
- Wikipedia: Mindfulness-based stress reduction. Program structure as described in Kabat-Zinn's Full Catastrophe Living (revised edition 2013) and the attitudes of practice.
- App sessions: "Breath Awareness", "Grounded in the Now: Presence Through Body and Breath", "Mindful Observation: Waking the Senses", "Unhooking From Thoughts: Stepping Out of the Rumination Loop", "What Is Meditation?", AI Meditation: Sleep & Calm, session texts and descriptions as read in the app's files on September 25, 2026.
