Within the past few decades, there has been a surge of interest in the investigation of mindfulness as a psychological construct and as a form of clinical intervention. This article reviews the empirical literature on the effects of mindfulness on psychological health. We begin with a discussion of the construct of mindfulness, differences between Buddhist and Western psychological conceptualizations of mindfulness, and how mindfulness has been integrated into Western medicine and psychology, before reviewing three areas of empirical research: cross-sectional, correlational research on the associations between mindfulness and various indicators of psychological health; intervention research on the effects of mindfulness-oriented interventions on psychological health; and laboratory-based, experimental research on the immediate effects of mindfulness inductions on emotional and behavioral functioning. We conclude that mindfulness brings about various positive psychological effects, including increased subjective well-being, reduced psychological symptoms and emotional reactivity, and improved behavioral regulation. The review ends with a discussion on mechanisms of change of mindfulness interventions and suggested directions for future research.

An 8-week mindfulness training program might increase mindful awareness in daily life and have beneficial impact on clinically relevant emotion regulation processes.

Pursuing undergraduate medical training can be very stressful and academically challenging experience. A 5-week mindfulness-based stress management (MBSM/Mindful-Gym) program was developed to help medical students cope with stress. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention in reducing stress among students in a medical school in Malaysia. Seventy-five medical students participated in the program. They were stratified according to years of studies and randomly allocated to intervention (N = 37) and control groups (N = 38). The following outcome variables were measured at pre- and post-intervention: mindfulness (with Mindful Awareness Attention Scale); perceived stress (with Perceived Stress Scale); mental distress (with General Health Questionnaire), and self-efficacy (with General Self-efficacy Scale). Hierarchical multiple regressions were used to analyse the effect of group (intervention vs. control) on changes in the outcome variables. There were significant improvements at one week post-intervention in all outcome variables: mindfulness (β = 0.19, ΔR2 = 0.04, p = .040, f (2) = 0.05), perceived stress (β = -0.26, ΔR2 = 0.07, p = .009, f (2) = 0.10); mental distress (β = -0.28, ΔR2 = 0.10, p = .003, f (2) = 0.15); and self-efficacy (β = 0.30, ΔR2 = 0.09, p < .001, f (2) = 0.21). Six months after the intervention, those who had joined the program reported higher self-efficacy compared to those in the control group (β = 0.24, ΔR2 = 0.06, p = .020, f (2) = 0.08); but there was no difference in other outcome measures. More than 90% of the participants found the program applicable in helping patients and all reported that they would recommend it to others. This study indicates that the program is potentially an effective stress management program for medical students in Malaysia.

Research has demonstrated support for the efficacy of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) in alleviating psychological distress and symptoms. Less is known, however, about the mechanisms through which MBSR achieves its outcomes. This study examined mindfulness and self-compassion as potential mediators of MBSR's effects on several processes and behaviors related to emotion regulation, using data from a randomized trial of MBSR versus waitlist (WL), in which MBSR participants demonstrated significantly greater improvements in worry, fear of emotion, difficulties in emotion regulation, suppression of anger, and aggressive anger expression. Mediation analysis using bootstrap resampling indicated that increases in self-compassion mediated MBSR's effects on worry, controlling for change in mindfulness. Increases in mindfulness mediated the intervention's effects on difficulties in emotion regulation, controlling for change in self-compassion. Both variables mediated MBSR's effects on fear of emotion. These findings highlight the importance of mindfulness and self-compassion as key processes of change that underlie MBSR's outcomes.

The present study investigated the relative effects of mindfulness and reappraisal in reducing sad mood and whether trait mindfulness and habitual reappraisal moderated the effects. The study also compared the extent to which implementation of these strategies incurred cognitive resources. A total of 129 participants were randomly assigned to receiving training in mindfulness, reappraisal, or no training prior to undergoing an autobiographical sad mood induction. Results showed that mindfulness and reappraisal were superior to no training, and equivalent in their effects in lowering sad mood. Compared to mindfulness, reappraisal resulted in significantly higher interference scores on a subsequent Stroop test, reflecting greater depletion of cognitive resources. Higher trait mindfulness, but not habitual reappraisal, predicted greater reductions in sadness across conditions. The study suggests that although mindfulness and reappraisal are equally effective in down-regulating sad mood, they incur different levels of cognitive costs.

Little research has examined ways in which mindfulness is associated with affect dynamics, referring to patterns of affect fluctuations in daily life. Using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), the present study examined the associations between trait mindfulness and several types of affect dynamics, namely affect variability, affect inertia, affect switch, and affect instability. Three hundred ninety undergraduate students from Singapore reported their current emotions and coping styles up to 19 times per day across 2 days. Results showed that trait mindfulness correlated negatively with variability, instability, and inertia of negative affect and positively with negative-to-positive affect switch. These relationships were independent of openness, habitual reappraisal, habitual suppression, depression, and self-esteem. Importantly, lower maladaptive coping was found to mediate these relationships. The study suggests that trait mindfulness independently promotes adaptive patterns of affective experiences in daily life by inhibiting maladaptive coping styles. (PsycINFO Database Record

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The present paper examines longitudinally how subjective perceptions about COVID-19, one’s community, and the government predict adherence to public health measures to reduce the spread of the virus. Using an international survey (N = 3040), we test how infection risk perception, trust in the governmental response and communications about COVID-19, conspiracy beliefs, social norms on distancing, tightness of culture, and community punishment predict various containment-related attitudes and behavior. Autoregressive analyses indicate that, at the personal level, personal hygiene behavior was predicted by personal infection risk perception. At social level, social distancing behaviors such as abstaining from face-to-face contact were predicted by perceived social norms. Support for behavioral mandates was predicted by confidence in the government and cultural tightness, whereas support for anti-lockdown protests was predicted by (lower) perceived clarity of communication about the virus. Results are discussed in light of policy implications and creating effective interventions.