Mindfulness Classes
Online Class
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
8-week online course
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is an eight-week program that introduces mindfulness practices in the form of sitting meditation, body awareness, and mindful movement, modeled by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD.
This program can help if stress is having a negative impact on your life, if you are experiencing chronic physical or mental distress, or if you are simply interested in learning ways to maintain health and well-being. Over 6,000 research papers have published findings on the benefits of practicing MBSR including decreased anxiety, depression, pain, and distress, and increased attention, concentration, performance, and quality of life. Recent studies have found that an 8-week MBSR course had comparable effectiveness to a first-line medication for patients with anxiety disorders (JAMA, 2022)
Each MBSR course includes:
- An orientation
- A 30-minute private interview with the instructor before the first class,
- 8 weekly sessions
- One daylong retreat on a Saturday or Sunday
A unique and essential aspect of the UCSF Osher Center MBSR program is a thirty-minute private interview with the instructor before the first class. This is an opportunity to ask questions about the program’s suitability for any personal circumstances. One may also provide information about their health, challenges, and aspirations that one would like the instructor to know so that they can best support one’s well-being.
The orientation session consists of meeting the instructor and participants, an introduction to what participation in the class entails, history and research on the MBSR model, and instruction and practice of mindfulness techniques.
June–August Tuesday Evenings, 6:00-8:30 p.m.
- Orientation: June 11
- Class Dates: June 25–August 13
- Retreat: Saturday, August 3
- Instructor: Nichole Proffitt
- Registration is open
June–August Thursday Afternoons, 2:45-5:15 p.m.
- Orientation: June 27
- Class Dates: July 11–August 29
- Retreat: Sunday, August 18
- Instructor: James Mitchell
- Registration is open
This eight-week class costs $395.
Discount is available for UC faculty, staff, students, and UCSF MBSR Alumni. Free for individuals who qualify for the Community Care Fund (https://osher.ucsf.edu/CCF).
Given the limited availability of our administrator, we kindly ask you to reference the FAQ page to see if your question is answered before contacting 415-353-7718.
Thank you for your understanding.
Mindfulness for Healing Chronic Pain
5-week online course
The current medical and clinical research on chronic pain indicates that while biological factors like tissue damage, inflammation, and system dysfunction generate pain, there are multiple factors that influence how much and for how long we experience it. They include our emotions; our thoughts, beliefs, and expectations; our past experiences and memories; and the context (where we are, whom we are with, and what is happening in the moment). In other words, pain is a very complex and dynamic phenomenon that is both physical and emotional.
Drawing from the latest advances in neuroscience research and millennia-old mindfulness practices, this five-week course offers a step-by-step approach to healing chronic pain.
In this course you will learn:
- What is pain, why we have it, and how it works
- How to distinguish the physical and emotional aspects of pain
- How to identify and monitor the conditions that tend to increase and decrease pain throughout the day
- How to observe thoughts and emotions, in particular those related to fear, as they affect the intensity and duration of pain
- How to be aware of unpleasant experiences in general, not only the experience of pain, as they tend to trigger a sense of aversion in the mind
- How to transform our relationship to pain, that is, how to move from reacting to pain to healing pain with understanding, care, and compassion.
This course consists of:
- Five weekly sessions live, online, via Zoom; each session lasts two hours
- Suggestions for home-based practices for each week; these practices include guided meditations and ways to cultivate mindfulness in daily life
- A 30-minute interview with the instructor before the first class.
May: Wednesday Evenings, 5:30-7:30 pm
- Class Dates: May 1–May 29
- Instructor: Valeria Galetto
- Class is full; register for the waitlist
This five-week class costs $250.
Discount is available for UC faculty, staff, students, and UCSF MBSR Alumni. Free for individuals who qualify for the Community Care Fund (https://osher.ucsf.edu/CCF).
Instructors
Jane Baraz, MA
Bonnie O’Brien Jonsson, MS
Valeria Galetto, PhD
James Mitchell, PhD
