Mindfulness
March 26, 2026
Paul Verhaeghen, Shelley N. Aikman, Nilam Ram
Abstract Objectives The study aimed to identify the within-person mediating mechanisms linking state mindfulness to mental health, wellbeing, and compassion. Method Participants (133 college students going through an eight-week mindfulness intervention, and 131 waitlist controls) provided daily measures of predictors (facets of mindfulness), mediators (rumination, cognitive interference,...
The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences
March 12, 2025
Paul Verhaeghen, Shelley N. Aikman, Grazia Mirabito
9 citations
Mindfulness interventions are consistently associated with beneficial effects in younger adults. In this meta-analysis, we seek to quantify the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions for the mental health and well-being of older adults. We include 46 studies that implemented a mindfulness intervention (MBSR = 20; MBCT = 9; ad hoc protocol = 17) with older adults (samples with an average age...
Cogent Mental Health
September 9, 2024
Mackenzie E. Pierce, Grazia Mirabito, Paul Verhaeghen
6 citations
Fifty-seven college students downloaded the Headspace app and gave daily reports of app use, state mindfulness, state depression, state anxiety and state stress over a two-week period. App use was high (86 min). Day-to-day ratings of anxiety and stress decreased, while ratings of state depression and state mindfulness remained stable. Multilevel mediational models showed that spending time on...
Psychological Reports
November 16, 2023
Grazia Mirabito, Paul Verhaeghen
8 citations
It is often assumed that changes in state mindfulness coupled with a decrease in intrusive thinking (e.g., rumination or worry) are the crucial ingredients in mindfulness interventions. We investigate this claim by examining within-person day-to-day changes and causal relationships among these changes in state measures of mindfulness, cognitive interference (a measure of intrusive thinking),...
Behavioral Sciences
September 29, 2022
Jesse R Caswell, Aishwarya N Duggirala, Paul Verhaeghen
Background: We examined how a newly proposed facet of rumination, that is, the (in)ability to let go, might relate to other aspects of rumination and to psychological outcomes. Methods: In two independent samples (n = 423 and 329, resp.) of college students, we measured a broad set of rumination and rumination-related measures, letting go, anxiety and dysphoria; in the second sample, we also...
BMC Psychology
July 29, 2022
Jacob T Miller, Paul Verhaeghen
46 citations
We investigated the relationship between mindfulness and compassion in a broader way than is typically done by (a) using a recent, comprehensive conceptualization of mindfulness as a manifold of self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence, and (b) by casting a wide net of compassion measures [i.e., the Compassionate Love for Humanity Scale (Sprecher and Fehr in J Soc Pers Relatsh...
Oxford University Press eBooks
March 23, 2017
Paul Verhaeghen
1 citation
This chapter defines mindfulness, describes reasons to be mindful, and looks at how mindfulness can be trained through meditation (viz., focused attention meditation, open awareness meditation, and heart practices such as loving-kindness meditation) and through formal mindfulness training programs. It also describes the methodology for investigating the effects of mindfulness, putting an...
Contemporary Buddhism
January 2, 2017
Paul Verhaeghen
9 citations
One of the core teachings of Buddhism is the doctrine of anattā. I argue that there is good evidence that anattā as understood in early Buddhism should be viewed less as a doctrine and a metaphysical pronouncement (‘no-Self’) than as a soteriological claim (‘not-self’) – an appeal and a method to achieve, or move progressively closer to, liberation. This view opens up anattā to empirical...