When you think of mindfulness, a personal practice of deep breathing, meditation or pausing for reflection might come to mind. Expanding its use beyond the individual benefit to the collective to achieve systemic change and organizational equity is the focus of a prestigious National Science Foundation grant recently awarded to Washington University in St. Louis.

A new Washington University in St. Louis research project funded by a National Institutes of Health grant will focus on the potential of mindfulness to enhance cognitive health in Latinx older adults at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. It’s just one of the ways WashU is studying mindfulness practices and how they can impact both individuals and whole communities.

Dr. Diana Parra Perez is an Assistant Professor at WashU’s Prevention Research Center, from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. Parra Perez had a leading role launching WashU’s new Mindfulness Science and Practice. The idea is to transform the science of mindfulness through pioneering collaborative research.

“Sound is one of the most ancient forms of healing, actually, and it has a kinship to meditation and mindfulness practices going back thousands of years,” Diana Parra Perez says. Perez, an assistant professor from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, researches chronic disease prevention and the benefits of mindfulness interventions, including sound healing.