Applied psychology. Health and well-being
February 1, 2022
Evgeny N Osin, Irina I Turilina
34 citations
A 3-week distance-based guided meditation program for 175 novice volunteers showed that meditation gradually became less effortful, less boring, more interesting, and more important over time. However, individuals varied in these experiences. Those who started with higher autonomous motivation, mindfulness, and self-regulation skills found meditation easier and more beneficial. In contrast, people with lower self-regulation or a tendency to ruminate were more likely to find meditation effortful and boring, and ultimately to quit. The findings highlight that individual differences in well-being, reflective processes, self-management, and self-control shape how people respond to online mindfulness interventions.
Applied psychology. Health and well-being
November 1, 2024
Qiongjuan Zheng, Han-Yu Zhou, Keshuang Li et al.
13 citations
A short-term mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) reduced psychological distress and increased mindfulness among college students who engage in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Compared to healthy controls, the NSSI group initially showed higher distress and lower mindfulness. After the intervention, the NSSI MBI group had significantly greater mindfulness and lower distress than both an NSSI control group and healthy controls. During an emotion regulation task, the NSSI MBI group reported reduced negative emotion intensity regardless of the strategy used. Gains in mindfulness, stress, and emotion regulation were maintained at follow-up. The findings suggest MBI may help individuals with NSSI by improving emotion regulation.
Applied psychology. Health and well-being
August 1, 2024
Wanying Zhou, Ros Mclellan
13 citations
Mindfulness-based interventions, whether taught by an instructor or practiced as self-help, can improve well-being and prosocial behavior among Chinese adolescents. In a study of 362 students (average age 13, 47.5% girls), those who received taught mindfulness showed significantly greater improvement in well-being compared to a control group, and both mindfulness groups reported increased prosocial behavior. However, the taught group also experienced a decrease in loneliness but an increase in internalizing problems. No significant changes were observed in depression, anxiety, or stress levels across groups. The findings suggest that integrating mindfulness into Chinese schools may be beneficial, especially given the positive outcomes of the self-help approach.
Applied psychology. Health and well-being
June 1, 2025
Saida Heshmati, Chelsea Muth, Yanling Li et al.
3 citations
An 8-week randomized controlled trial with 160 college-attending early adults aged 18-22 used a mobile health platform to test whether skills for psychological well-being can be learned through ecological momentary interventions. Participants were assigned to an active control group, a positive practices intervention, or a positive practices plus meditation intervention. Bayesian process modeling indicated that the mobile assessment tool itself may have improved well-being over time, shown by increased within-person mean levels, decreased intra-individual variability, and improved regulation of positive emotions and relationship quality. Moderation analysis further suggested that people who initially had low negative affect improved most in their average positive emotions and relationship quality.
Applied psychology. Health and well-being
June 1, 2025
Xinyuan Peng, Da Jiang, Dwight C K Tse et al.
2 citations
People who are better at describing their experiences and acting with awareness feel less of a drop in high-energy positive emotions when alone. Those who are more nonreactive to inner experiences feel a stronger boost in calm, low-energy positive emotions during solitude. People who observe their experiences more closely feel less low-energy negative emotion when alone. The study tracked 188 adults in Hong Kong, ages 19 to 93, who reported their social situation and feelings five times daily for a week.
Applied psychology. Health and well-being
August 1, 2024
Yangyu Lian, Wenrui Zhang, Ting He et al.
1 citation
A virtuous cycle exists between mindfulness and meaning in life (MIL), offering hope for those struggling with depression. In a diary study involving 184 college students, participants reported their experiences three times daily over 14 days, generating 7,726 responses. Results revealed that heightened state mindfulness significantly enhanced MIL, particularly for individuals with higher depressive symptoms. This dynamic relationship not only fostered greater meaning in daily life but also helped mitigate worsening depressive symptoms within two weeks, highlighting the transformative potential of mindfulness practices.
Applied psychology. Health and well-being
August 1, 2023
Isabel Carrero, Carlos Martínez de Ibarreta, Carmen Valor et al.
Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) can elicit both positive emotions like compassion and gratitude and negative emotions like guilt in novice practitioners, especially those with greater self-discrepancy and lower self-esteem. Two experimental studies with community and student samples (55 and 33 participants) using brief interventions found that LKM activates empathetic emotions more than an active control, with guilt arising from memories of past failures to feel compassion or difficulty sending loving-kindness to disliked others. The findings suggest instructors should prepare naïve meditators for possible negative emotions during early LKM practice.
Applied psychology. Health and well-being
August 1, 2022
Ruochen Gan, Liuyi Zhang, Shulin Chen
A meta-analysis of 14 randomized controlled trials found that body scan meditation alone, a single component of standardized mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), has only a small effect on mindfulness compared to passive control conditions (Hedge's g = 0.268). The intervention did not effectively improve health-related outcomes. Attrition rates for long-term interventions were low, but the overall quality of the included studies was low and there was high heterogeneity across studies. These results suggest that a sole body scan meditation is not sufficient to produce meaningful health benefits.
Applied psychology. Health and well-being
August 1, 2022
Xiaodan Gu, Wenting Luo, Xinran Zhao et al.
Loving-kindness and compassion meditation (LKCM) appears promising for increasing life satisfaction, but evidence from rigorous studies is weak. A meta-analysis of 23 studies found that LKCM significantly improved life satisfaction in pre-post comparisons (15 studies, 451 participants), but this effect disappeared when only randomized controlled trials were analyzed (6 studies, 404 participants). LKCM outperformed waitlist conditions but was less effective than active control groups. Self-compassion and positive emotions may explain how LKCM works. Practice time was only indirectly linked to life satisfaction. More well-designed studies are needed to clarify whether LKCM changes actual life circumstances or people's perceptions of their lives.