International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
February 17, 2023
Shulamit Geller, Gal van den Brink, Yehoshua Akerman et al.
2 citations
During the first COVID-19 lockdown, dreams shared on social network sites (SNS) reflected collective trauma and coping. A qualitative analysis of 30 dreams identified three themes: threats (enemy, danger, COVID-19), emotional fusion (confusion and despair alongside recovery and hope), and group processes oscillating between being alone and being together. Dreamtelling on SNS helped individuals process social reality and build hope through creative social relationships, demonstrating transformative potential for coping during collective disasters.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
October 8, 2022
Youteng Gan, Ruohang Wang, Jiangang Li et al.
2 citations
Athletes who experience nightmares show higher neuroticism and anxiety than those who do not, and anxiety, neuroticism, and sensation seeking positively predict athletes' nightmare experiences. Among 187 athletes, 87 (46.5%) reported having nightmares. The athlete nightmare group scored significantly higher in neuroticism than the non-nightmare group, and their anxiety scores were significantly higher than those of non-athletes, who scored higher in aggressiveness, neuroticism, and sensation seeking.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
February 17, 2026
Carla J. Berg, Cassidy R Loparco, Darcey M. Mccready et al.
1 citation
Among 3,227 US adults aged 18–34 surveyed in 2025, past-6-month cannabis use was reported by 40.5% and past-year psychedelic use by 11.9%. Psychedelics had less legalization support, less promotional and risk-message exposure, and lower social acceptability than cannabis, while being perceived as more addictive and harmful. Factors linked to both cannabis and psychedelic use included lower perceived addictiveness and harm, higher social acceptability, more adverse childhood experiences, more promotional and risk-message exposure, and higher scores on a mental health questionnaire. Greater legalization support for both substances was associated with lower perceived addictiveness and harm, higher social acceptability, and more promotional-message exposure. Message exposure may be especially important in shaping psychedelic use and legalization support.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
March 27, 2025
Déborah Ducasse, Martin Leurent, Marie-Christine Picot et al.
1 citation
A French version of the Ontological Addiction Scale (OAS) was validated in 492 French adults with emotional or mood disorders. The scale measures ontological addiction, a dysfunctional self-concept where individuals see themselves as separate from their surroundings. The French OAS showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha: 0.89) and strong test-retest reliability, with a single-factor structure matching the original English version. A 12-item version also had good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha: 0.81). Construct validity was supported by medium to large correlations with self-esteem, shame, perfectionism, and mindfulness. The French OAS is a robust tool for assessing ontological addiction in research and clinical practice.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
October 16, 2024
Kasey D Klimo, Jessica Walls Wilson, Charlotte Farewell et al.
1 citation
An online mindfulness program adapted for LGBTQ+ adolescents, Learning to Breathe-Queer (L2B-Q), was tested in a pilot study with twenty participants. The program showed feasible recruitment and assessment retention, acceptable content with some delivery areas needing improvement, and was safe and tolerable. From before to after the intervention, adolescents reported decreased depression and anxiety, and improved intuitive eating, physical activity, and LGBTQ+ identity self-awareness, with moderate-to-large effects. The findings suggest that adapted mindfulness-based interventions can benefit LGBTQ+ youth and warrant further optimization and testing.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
June 30, 2026
Fabiane Dolphine Fuentes Penachiotti, Mirian Yamaguchi, Bráulio Henrique Magnani Branco et al.
An eight-week online mindfulness program improved positive mental health and reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression among Brazilian undergraduate pedagogy students enrolled in distance education. Compared with a control group, the intervention also increased sense of coherence, resilience, and mindfulness while lowering perceived stress. The findings suggest that low-cost, scalable online mindfulness interventions can enhance mental health and reduce distress in higher education settings.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
June 25, 2026
Alessandro Germani, Antonella Lopez, Claudia Mirenghi et al.
An 8-week mindful walking program was tested in 13 community-dwelling older adults. The program showed high acceptability, satisfaction, and full adherence. Exploratory analyses indicated within-person reductions in depressive symptoms and alexithymia, with somatic symptoms decreasing notably by one-month follow-up. Mindfulness increased and was maintained, while mind wandering showed a probable long-term decrease. Psychological quality of life improved and stayed elevated, but physical, social, and environmental domains showed uncertain trends. Trait anxiety decreased after the program but returned toward baseline at follow-up; state anxiety and attachment styles remained stable. The authors suggest mindful walking may be feasible for older adults, with preliminary signals pending confirmation in controlled trials.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
May 29, 2026
Simin Kazemi, Julia Torquati, Tuyen Huynh
Connection to nature is linked to psychological wellbeing, and two studies tested whether mindfulness or spirituality explain this link. In Study 1 (219 young adults), mindful attention reduced anxiety and perceived stress, and mindful awareness reduced depression and increased positive states of mind; spirituality did not mediate these effects. In Study 2 (180 young adults), spirituality (self-transcendence) mediated wellbeing outcomes except anxiety, while none of the five facets of mindfulness were significant mediators. The roles of mindfulness and spirituality depend on how they are conceptualized and measured, indicating a need for conceptual clarity in future research.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
January 28, 2026
Brittany L Garcia, Maureen A Craig, Nicole Adams et al.
A multi-modal Stress Management and Resiliency Training (SMART) Program for clinicians led to significant improvements in well-being, burnout, perceived stress, stress coping, resilience, and self-compassion at two months, with moderate-to-large effects. These benefits were maintained at eight months, six months after program completion, with small-to-moderate effects. Greater use of stress-management techniques and more days of meditation practice for at least 10 minutes were linked to larger improvements in well-being.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
June 27, 2025
Rebecca Ciacchini, Silvia Villani, Mario Miniati et al.
College students experience high rates of psychological distress, including anxiety, depression, and chronic stress. A structured mindfulness-based program called Mindfulness Laboratory (MLAB) was delivered to 194 psychology students in Italy across online, hybrid, and in-person formats over three academic years. Among the 176 students who completed pre- and post-intervention assessments, improvements were observed in mindfulness, perceived stress, anxiety, and depression, with a smaller increase in resilience. Sleep quality remained unchanged, and self-compassion slightly declined. No significant differences emerged across the three delivery formats, indicating comparable effectiveness regardless of modality. These results suggest that mindfulness-based interventions are feasible and beneficial for university students.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
March 2, 2023
Alberto Barceló-soler, Héctor Morillo-Sarto, Selene Fernández-martínez et al.
Third-wave psychotherapies that emphasize mindfulness, compassion, and acceptance are effective for chronic pain, but they typically require patients to practice meditation at home. A systematic review of 31 quantitative studies found that patients practiced around four days per week on average, though the amount of time spent varied widely. Most studies linked greater home practice to better health outcomes. The most common interventions, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, showed low adherence: patients completed only 39.6% of the recommended practice time. Adolescents practiced very few minutes, and eHealth interventions had mixed adherence. Adaptations may help chronic pain patients engage more easily and effectively in home meditation practice.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
January 1, 2023
L. Vitagliano, Kelly L. Wester, Connie T. Jones et al.
College students' anxiety has been rising for years and worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mindfulness-based interventions and exposure to natural environments each reduce anxiety, but brief nature-based mindfulness programs often lack social interaction and do not deliberately combine mindfulness theory with Attention Restoration Theory. This paper describes a framework for a new psychoeducational group intervention called Nature-Based Mindfulness Training (NBMT) that intentionally integrates both approaches. The authors argue that such integration offers an effective and sustainable way to reduce anxiety among college students. Limitations and future research directions are noted.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
December 8, 2022
Amer Raheemullah, Ori-Michael Benhamou, Jamie Kuo et al.
Microdosing buprenorphine to transition patients from full-agonist opioids avoids the withdrawal and pain that typically require 12 or more hours of opioid abstinence. Evidence shows this cross-taper strategy is safe and effective, and it is already used across the United States. The authors argue that national prescribing guidelines and buprenorphine training should recognize this approach, and that the FDA should approve transdermal buprenorphine for opioid use disorder while manufacturers produce lower-dose sublingual formulations. They conclude that buprenorphine microdosing cross-tapers should become the new standard of care.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
October 18, 2022
Tia Rich, Benjamin W Chrisinger, Rajani Kaimal et al.
People who engage in multiple contemplative practices—embodied somatic-observing, non-reactive mindfulness, self-compassion, and compassion for others—report higher well-being across several dimensions, including overall well-being and its constituent domains. This association is comparable to or stronger than the link between physical activity and well-being. The findings come from three large, culturally diverse cohorts in the San Francisco Bay Area, Hangzhou City, and New Taipei City, totaling nearly 20,000 participants. The results suggest that considering a range of contemplative practices, rather than just one, may better capture their relationship with well-being and that such practices could be valuable as part of fundamental lifestyle recommendations.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
June 25, 2022
Paulina Wróbel-knybel, Michał Flis, Joanna Róg et al.
Sleep paralysis (SP) is a temporary inability to move while conscious, occurring when falling asleep or waking up. Among 844 professionals at high risk—nurses and midwives, police officers, teachers, and a mixed group—prevalence ranged from 15.5% in police officers to 39.4% in the mixed group. Symptoms of PTSD and anxiety were linked to SP in nurses and the mixed group. Other factors associated with SP frequency and severity included age, body mass index, smoking, alcohol use, sleep duration, and perceived stress. The findings indicate that psychological and lifestyle factors together contribute to SP, suggesting a complex cause and the need for targeted prevention and treatment.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
March 13, 2022
Yolanda Álvarez-Pérez, Amado Rivero-Santana, Lilisbeth Perestelo-Pérez et al.
Mantra-based meditation techniques produce small-to-moderate reductions in anxiety, depression, stress, post-traumatic stress, and improvements in mental health-related quality of life compared to control conditions. The evidence, drawn from randomized controlled trials, shows effect sizes ranging from g = -0.33 for depression to g = -0.59 for post-traumatic stress. However, the findings are limited by risk of study bias and a lack of studies with psychiatric samples and long-term follow-up.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
March 1, 2022
Chao Liu, Hao Chen, Xinyi Cao et al.
A randomized controlled trial with 91 doctors in a Chinese hospital found that an 8-week mindfulness meditation program improved mindfulness, patient safety culture, and patient safety competency, and reduced adverse events compared to a waiting control group. The control group showed no significant changes. The authors conclude that mindfulness meditation is a simple and effective intervention for improving patient safety.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
January 22, 2022
Do-Young Kim, Soo-Hwa Hong, Seung-Hyeon Jang et al.
A systematic review of 104 randomized controlled trials involving 10,139 participants with 45 different disorders found that meditation-based interventions—primarily mindfulness-based, yoga-based, and transcendental meditation—most often targeted symptoms such as depressive mood, anxiety, quality of life, stress, sleep, pain, and fatigue. Positive outcomes were most frequently reported for sleep (73.9% of trials) and fatigue (68.4% of trials). The review provides a comprehensive overview of how therapeutic meditation has been studied in clinical populations, highlighting the most common conditions and symptoms addressed, though methodological heterogeneity remains a challenge.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
January 20, 2022
Fabio D’Antoni, Alessio Matiz, Franco Fabbro et al.
A single 40-minute session of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Brainspotting (BSP), or Body Scan Meditation (BSM) each reduced the subjective disturbance (SUD scores) of distressing memories in 40 healthy adult psychologists and medical doctors. EMDR and BSP produced significantly lower disturbance than BSM and a book-reading control condition, both immediately after the session and at follow-up. BSM also lowered disturbance more than book reading. EMDR and BSP additionally shortened the time participants spent telling the memory. The study suggests that even one session of these interventions can help process distressing memories in a non-clinical sample.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
January 1, 2022
E. Chacko, Benjamin Ling, Nadav Avny et al.
A systematic review of seven studies indicates that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy may reduce self-rated stress in family carers of people living with dementia. Four studies showed a statistically significant reduction in carer stress compared to controls, and one adequately powered study also found reductions in carer burden, depression, and anxiety. The authors conclude that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy appears potentially effective but note that large, high-quality randomized controlled trials in ethnically diverse populations are needed to confirm its effectiveness.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
November 1, 2021
A. Kim, M. Jang, M. Sun
A mindfulness-based stress reduction program, applied once a week for 60 minutes over 8 weeks, significantly decreased perceived stress and negative affect, and significantly improved heart rate variability in community-dwelling people with schizophrenia compared with a control group. The program was an effective nursing intervention for reducing stress and negative affect in this population.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
September 1, 2021
Paulina Wróbel-knybel, Joanna Róg, Baland Jalal et al.
Sleep paralysis (SP) affects about 7.6% of the general population, and PTSD is a strong risk factor. In a study of 831 professional firefighters, the prevalence of SP was 8.7%. High probability of PTSD was found in 15.04% of participants, and those with PTSD had 1.86 times the odds of experiencing SP (95% CI: 1.04–3.33). Firefighters who had at least one SP episode scored higher on scales measuring PTSD symptoms, trait anxiety, and worry. The number of SP episodes correlated positively with symptom severity across these measures. The authors suggest further research is needed to understand SP's impact on firefighters' mental and physical health and to develop prevention methods.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
June 29, 2021
E. M. Pardos-Gascón, Lucas Narambuena, César Leal-Costa et al.
Chronic pain affects 15% of the Spanish population. A quasi-experimental study with 57 patients at three hospitals in Alicante evaluated mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for chronic pain. Self-reported measures assessed pain intensity, anxiety-depression, health status, sleep interference, self-efficacy, acceptance, and mindfulness. Significant improvements with medium effect sizes were found for present pain intensity, mental quality of life, depression, and self-efficacy (total score, symptom management, pain control). Large effect sizes were observed for sleep disturbances and sleep quantity. MBCT reduces many symptoms in chronic pain patients, though long-term maintenance requires further study.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
May 23, 2021
Ton Nabben, Jelmer Weijs, Jan Van Amsterdam
Problematic or heavy recreational use of nitrous oxide (N2O, laughing gas) can cause serious adverse effects including neurological symptoms and severe paralysis. In Amsterdam, care centers observed these effects among Moroccan-Dutch young adults. Interviews with thirteen excessive users revealed that motives for use include relieving boredom, seeking relaxation with friends, and suppressing psychosocial stress, depression, discrimination, and conflict. A taboo culture involving mistrust, shame, and macho culture around substance use hinders timely medical and psychological treatment. Recommendations include using influencers in media campaigns and outreach youth workers to reduce risks and improve treatment access for this group.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
May 21, 2021
A. Accoto, S. Chiarella, A. Raffone et al.
During the first total lockdown in Italy, an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course plus six weeks of video support for meditation practice improved self-acceptance, purpose in life, and relation to others in a sample of Italian females, compared to a control group. Participants with greater mindfulness scores showed high levels of psychological flexibility, which in turn was positively associated with higher psychological well-being. The findings suggest that MBSR can support psychological well-being in female subjects even during an unpredictable adverse event like the COVID-19 lockdown.