Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
December 1, 2018
Emily K. Lindsay, Brian Chin, Carol M. Greco et al.
221 citations
Mindfulness interventions that train both monitoring of present-moment experiences and an accepting orientation toward them (Monitor + Accept) boost positive emotions in daily life, while training monitoring alone does not. Across two randomized controlled trials with stressed community adults, those who received Monitor + Accept training reported greater positive affect after the intervention compared with those who received monitoring-only training or no treatment. The effect appeared in end-of-day positive affect in an 8-week group-based study and in both end-of-day and momentary positive affect in a 2-week smartphone-based study. All active interventions reduced negative affect. Acceptance skills are a central mechanism for increasing positive emotions through mindfulness.
Health Psychology
May 23, 2019
Brian Chin, Emily K. Lindsay, Carol M. Greco et al.
107 citations
Training in both monitoring and acceptance skills—but not monitoring skills alone—reduced stress and increased nonjudgment in daily life. Stressed community adults who completed an 8-week mindfulness program that included acceptance training reported lower stress ratings and fewer stress episodes compared with those who received only monitoring training or no treatment. The findings suggest that acceptance skills may be a necessary active ingredient for stress resilience.
Journal of Experimental Psychology General
September 24, 2020
Brian Chin, Emily K. Lindsay, Carol M. Greco et al.
49 citations
An 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention that included both monitoring and acceptance skills, and a modified version that focused on monitoring skills only, both improved momentary and trait attentional control compared with no treatment. Improvements in momentary attentional control partially accounted for gains in trait attentional control. Performance on a dichotic listening sustained-attention task did not improve. The results suggest that present-focused monitoring skills training is a key driver of mindfulness-related improvements in attentional control.
Psychosomatic Medicine
March 3, 2021
Emily K. Lindsay, J. David Creswell, Harrison J. Stern et al.
18 citations
An 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program buffered increases in glucocorticoid resistance (GCR)—a measure of immune cells' reduced sensitivity to anti-inflammatory signals—among lonely older adults aged 65–85, compared with a matched health enhancement program. GCR increased in the control group from before to after the intervention, while the MBSR group showed a small, nonsignificant reduction. The between-group difference was moderate immediately after the program but was not maintained at a 3-month follow-up. The findings suggest MBSR may protect against short-term declines in immune regulation in at-risk older adults.
August 21, 2018
Emily K. Lindsay, Brian Chin, Carol M. Greco et al.
9 citations
Training in both monitoring present-moment experiences and accepting them boosts positive emotions more than monitoring alone. In two randomized trials with stressed community adults, a mindfulness intervention that taught monitoring plus acceptance skills increased daily positive affect, while a structurally equivalent intervention teaching only monitoring did not. The acceptance-focused intervention raised end-of-day positive affect in an 8-week group-based study and both end-of-day and momentary positive affect in a 2-week smartphone-based study. All active interventions reduced negative affect. These results indicate that cultivating acceptance toward present-moment experiences is a key mechanism through which mindfulness interventions enhance positive emotions in everyday life.
The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences
November 5, 2025
Janine M. Dutcher, Kirk W Brown, Emily K. Lindsay et al.
Loneliness is a major risk factor for illness and early death in older adults, yet interventions that simply increase social contact have shown limited success. Two randomized controlled trials tested whether an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program could reduce loneliness in older adults. In the first trial, MBSR significantly reduced loneliness compared to a waitlist control. In the second trial, both MBSR and a Health Enhancement Program (HEP) reduced loneliness to a similar degree, with no significant difference between them. Neither depressive symptoms, stress, sex, age, nor homework completion influenced the results. Both MBSR and HEP appear to be promising approaches for reducing loneliness in older adults, with effects lasting months.