In 1979, a report from the Surgeon General inspired Jon Kabat-Zinn to action. The U.S. "Healthy People" report chronicled Americans' struggles with chronic diseases, connecting poor health with harmful social conditions like poverty, as well as unhealthy habits.
"It was an extremely powerful articulation that no matter how many billions of dollars we throw at the problems of health in the American population, no amount of money can do the job," says Kabat-Zinn, who at the time was a researcher at University of Massachusetts Medical School and taught yoga and meditation on the side. "We have to ignite passion in people for taking care of themselves."
So Kabat-Zinn started a clinic to teach what he called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction – or MBSR – at UMass Medical School. The eight-week course offered a structured, secular approach to meditation – which involves learning to maintain awareness in the body in the present moment. The goal, says Kabat-Zinn was to teach people "how to take better care of yourself – not instead of medicine, but as a complement to whatever medicine can do."