People with persistent pain may find compassion-based meditation practices challenging as well as beneficial. In interviews with eight participants who completed the Mindfulness for Health program, five key themes emerged: turning away from the painful self, experiencing the painful self as shameful, facilitating change, turning toward the painful self, and accepting the self. Participants reported both positive changes and difficult emotional experiences linked to compassion in their past and present lives. Developing compassion is a valuable but sometimes difficult part of the program; mindfulness skills, group support, and modeling compassion help overcome personal barriers.
A single session of mindfulness practice, whether 5 or 20 minutes, increases state mindfulness more than an active control activity, with longer sessions enhancing decentering. Contrary to expectations, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience did not influence how people responded to different practice lengths. However, agreeableness moderated the effect: people lower in agreeableness experienced a significantly greater reduction in negative affect after a shorter practice compared to those higher in agreeableness. Trait mindfulness also affected how people responded to different doses. These findings suggest that personalizing the length of brief mindfulness exercises based on personality traits could improve their benefits and cost-effectiveness.