Free Your Mind and Mental Health and Wellbeing Will Follow: Evidence from Across-Day Within-Person Mediation in an Eight-Week Mindfulness RCT
Mindfulness March 26, 2026 Paul Verhaeghen, Shelley N. Aikman, Nilam Ram
Daily measures from 133 college students in an eight-week mindfulness intervention and 131 waitlist controls showed that state mindfulness improves mental health and wellbeing by reducing rumination and cognitive interference and increasing self-compassion and self-transcendent emotions. Cognitive interference was the strongest mediator. The acceptance facet of mindfulness worked through rumination, cognitive interference, and self-compassion; the monitoring facet worked through self-compassion and self-transcendent emotions. The intervention did not change the strength of these causal pathways. More meditation and mindfulness practice correlated with higher state mindfulness.