A structured nine-month meditation program, the 3 Doors Compassion Project (3DCP), which teaches Tibetan mind-body practices, was associated with significant improvements in mindfulness, stress, and depression among twenty-seven medical and mental health professionals. Improvements occurred incrementally each month. The frequency of meditation practice (days per month), but not the total time spent meditating (minutes per month), was significantly linked to these improvements. This suggests that consistent, regular meditation may be more beneficial than longer, less frequent sessions.
People with lower levels of acceptance and decentering at the start of a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program showed greater decreases in perceived stress afterward. However, higher baseline awareness, acceptance, and decentering predicted larger increases in positive affect, while higher awareness predicted greater reductions in negative affect, and lower decentering also predicted greater reductions in negative affect. The findings partly support the idea that lower initial mindfulness allows more room for improvement, but they also highlight that different facets of mindfulness relate to outcomes in unique and sometimes opposite ways.