[jdietrich]

You might want to peruse some of the research on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy; there's reasonably good evidence that it outperforms conventional CBT for patients with chronic or recurrent depression or chronic pain. There are also some interesting neuroimaging studies that suggest that regular meditators have increased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and reduced activity in the amygdala, which are both associated with psychological wellbeing.

Mindfulness is simply the practice of awareness, which encompasses a wide range of activities. The classic example is awareness of the breath - noticing the rhythm of inhalation and exhalation, noticing the sensation of air passing through your trachea, noticing when your attention wanders away from your breath and noticing how your focus returns to it. A technique often used with pain and anxiety patients is body-scan mindfulness - carefully notice the sensations in the soles of the feet, then the ankles, then the calves etc. You might notice and categorise your subjective experience in real time - this is a thought, this is a memory, this is a physical sensation.

Mindfulness has become a bit of a fad and is often poorly taught by inexperienced bandwagon-jumpers, which is unfortunate for a practice that pre-dates Christianity by several hundred years. If it does interest you, I'd suggest just trying it out, because it's sort of impossible to meaningfully communicate the subjective experience of mindfulness. Read Mindfulness for Beginners by John Kabat-Zinn or Mindfulness: A Practical Guide by Mark Williams, set aside fifteen minutes a day to practice and stick with it for a month.