The historical practice of mindfulness is a burgeoning integrated medicine field associated with benefits for people with issues ranging from insomnia to chronic pain and fueled by more than $550 million in federal funding over the past 20 years.
Yet the evidence for impact on health from mindfulness is sometimes outpaced by popular discourse on the promise. The science, hype and potential for clinical applications are explored in a special issue of Current Opinions in Psychology dedicated to contextualizing an emerging field of empirical research supporting the practice of mindfulness.