An online mindfulness course, completed at a self-directed pace over at least 4 weeks, significantly reduced perceived stress, anxiety, and depression in 273 self-referred adults. Improvements were seen immediately after the course and continued to increase at a 1-month follow-up, with effect sizes comparable to those of face-to-face mindfulness programs and cognitive behavioral therapy. The amount of meditation practice reported did affect outcomes when controlling for baseline severity. The study lacked a control group, so future research is needed to confirm the findings for different populations.
Conditional goal setting (CGS), the tendency to make happiness conditional on achieving lower-order goals, is linked to depression and lower dispositional mindfulness. In a pilot randomized trial of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) over 3–4 months, increases in dispositional mindfulness were associated with decreases in CGS, though this effect was not specific to the meditation-trained group. In 55 healthy participants, brief meditation—particularly loving kindness meditation—unexpectedly increased CGS, an effect limited to those low in goal re-engagement ability. Longer-term mindfulness gains may reduce CGS in depressed patients, but initial reactions to meditation can be counterintuitive, warranting further research.