Mindfulness in a College Physiology Course

The intervention, Mindful Physiology, is an undergraduate-level biology course embedded with mindfulness practices. There will be 19 class sessions, each 1 hour and 50 minutes long, over 10 weeks. Students will be taught human physiology through didactic lectures, laboratory activities, and written quizzes typical for a college course. Each class meeting will have \~20 minutes of mindfulness practice in Thích Nhất Hạnh's Plum Village tradition. Students will also be encouraged to practice mindfulness for 15 minutes daily outside the class. Students will complete a daily log of their mindfulness practice and be given credit for each log completion regardless of the minutes of mindfulness practice. Students will be assigned a weekly written reflection on the physiology course content and/or their mindfulness practice. All students in the class are required to attend a 4.5-hour or a two-day (16-hour) on-campus mindfulness retreat.