At the beginning of every 8 week MINDFULNESS-BASED STRESS REDUCTION program, I invite the participants to complete a questionnaire which provides a measure of the level of stress currently in their lives. Often this is done anonymously to ensure accurate ratings. The questionnaire is then completed again at the 8th and final session to see whether and how much of a change has taken place as a result of the program just completed. Perhaps the results are not all that significant on an individual level. After all, life has its ups and downs. However, the overall results for the group are of significance as individual variances are likely to cancel each other out. Furthermore, results of many groups over many years, are even more significant in terms of a measure of efficacy of the program.
Of the over one thousand questionnaires completed over the years, there have been a small handful of people whose scores did not change much or at all. The average shift over the whole database however, is over a 50% reduction in the levels of stress measured. Furthermore, a significant number of individuals experienced stress reduction levels of over 70% and at times up to over 90%.