PLoS One
October 23, 2025
Daniel Cullen, Kate Cavanagh, Clara Strauss
A qualitative study explored how National Health Service staff identify with mindfulness in-groups and engage with mindful practices. The findings suggest that social identification with mindfulness groups influences staff members' engagement with these practices, highlighting the role of group identity in sustaining mindfulness in a workplace setting.
Mindfulness
January 1, 2025
Ryad Chems-Maarif, Kate Cavanagh, Ruth A. Baer et al.
A narrative review of traditional Buddhist and contemporary psychological definitions of mindfulness finds that Buddhist definitions emphasize memory, present-centered awareness, and ethicality, while psychological definitions converge on present-centered awareness, bare attention, and attitudes of acceptance and non-judgment. The authors conclude that conceptual commonality across both traditions is lacking, making a single comprehensive definition difficult. For psychological science, they propose a refined definition: “present-centered awareness of and bare attention to body sensations, affective valence, cognitive and emotional phenomena, and the external environment with an allowing and equanimous attitude.” This definition incorporates four scopes of mindfulness and highlights allowing and equanimity as key qualities.
Scientific Reports
December 13, 2023
Guy W. Fincham, Clara Strauss, Kate Cavanagh
A large randomized trial assigned 400 participants to either coherent breathing at about 5.5 breaths per minute or a matched attention-placebo at 12 breaths per minute, practiced for about 10 minutes daily over 4 weeks. Both groups showed similar improvements in stress, anxiety, depression, and wellbeing from baseline to post-intervention and at a 1-month follow-up, but there was no significant difference between the two breathing techniques. The results indicate that coherent breathing does not provide added benefit over a well-designed placebo breathing exercise for mental health and wellbeing.
Mindfulness
December 1, 2023
Eleanor Miles, Faith Matcham, Clara Strauss et al.
Viewing mindfulness meditation as a health behavior, rather than only a technique, can help people develop and sustain a long-term practice. The Sussex Mindfulness MEDitation (SuMMed) model synthesizes health behavior theories with research on mindfulness to describe the stages people go through as they build a meditation habit and the processes that help them move from one stage to the next. The model highlights the need to support individuals to continue practicing after formal instruction ends and suggests how maintaining a meditation habit can be facilitated, offering a roadmap for future research and practical suggestions tailored to different stages of behavior change.
Scientific Reports
January 9, 2023
Guy William Fincham, Clara Strauss, Jesus Montero-Marin et al.
A meta-analysis of 12 randomized controlled trials with 785 adult participants found that breathwork interventions were associated with lower self-reported stress compared to control conditions, with a small-to-medium effect size. Breathwork also showed similar reductions in anxiety and depressive symptoms. The authors urge caution due to moderate risk of bias in most studies and call for more rigorous research to avoid overhyping the evidence.
PLoS One
June 15, 2016
Clara Strauss, Kate Cavanagh, Annie Oliver et al.
A meta-analysis of 12 randomized controlled trials involving 578 participants found that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) reduce symptom severity for people currently experiencing a depressive disorder, but not for those with a current anxiety disorder. MBIs showed a moderate benefit over control conditions on primary symptom severity. The benefit was significant for depressive symptoms but not for anxiety symptoms. Effects were present when compared with inactive controls but not with active controls. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) showed a significant effect, while mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) did not. The authors suggest MBIs may be considered for people with current depressive disorder.