Pre-retirement Employees Experience Lasting Improvements in Resilience and Well-Being After Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

Abstract

The socio-economic benefits of interventions to prevent stress and related mental health problems are enormous. In the labor market, it is becoming desirable to keep employees for as long as possible. Since aging implies additional stressors such as increased risk of illness, and added pressure by professional tasks such as transferring knowledge, or learning new technologies, it is of particular relevance to offer stress-reduction to pre-retirement employees. Here, we report the effects of an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) intervention on mental well-being in 60–65-year-old work-active Danish employees, compared to a waiting-list control group. We observed improvements in resilience (Brief Resilience Scale) and mental well-being (WHO-5) not only at the end of the intervention, but also at the 12-month follow-up measurement that was preceded by monthly booster sessions. Interestingly, whereas well-being usually refers to experiences in the past weeks or months, we observed increasing Comfort in the MBSR-intervention group during a 5-minute eyes-closed rest session suggesting that this therapeutic effect of MBSR is measurable in how we feel even during short periods of time. We argue that MBSR is a cost-effective intervention suited for pre-retirement employees to cultivate resilience to prevent stress, feel more comfortable with themselves, maintain a healthy work-life in the last years before retirement, and, potentially, stay in their work-life a few more years than originally planned.

Anger Expression in Negotiation: The Effects of Communication Channels and Anger Intensity

“…The opponents of the p -value corrections approach contend that type I error is dissipated to overall hypotheses rather than being localized to one or several hypotheses ( Matsunaga, 2007 ; Rubin, 2017b ). While we acknowledge both views are valid, we followed the no-adjustment approach as well as the other social science studies ( Ding et al, 2020 ; Diachenko et al, 2021 ; Thériault et al, 2021 ) by conceding the potential problems of the taken approach.…”

The Effects of a Mindfulness Program on Mental Health in Students at an Undergraduate Program for Teacher Education: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Real-Life

“…Construct validation of BRS has not been performed in a Danish context. However, previous Danish research studies have shown the effect of MBSR on BRS ( Juul et al, 2020 ; Diachenko et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Previous trials had shown the effect of MBSR on resilience. These trials included study populations at an older age and with lower levels of baseline resilience scores although within the normal range ( Juul et al, 2020 ; Diachenko et al, 2021 ). It was also very unexpected that our trial did not show a statistically significant effect of the mindfulness program on dispositional mindfulness and thereby no mediating effects.…”

“…ARSQ has not been validated in a Danish context. However, previous Danish research studies have shown the effect of MBSR on the ARSQ dimensions of discontinuity of mind, planning, body awareness, and comfort ( Juul et al, 2020 ; Diachenko et al, 2021 ).…”

“…On the other hand, our findings of positive effects of the mindfulness program on distracting thoughts, thoughts of self, and comfort in resting-state were in line with our hypotheses that the mindfulness program decreases mind wandering and increases a non-judgmental attitude e.g., toward self. Former trials had also shown the effect of MBSR on the resting state dimensions of discontinuity of mind and comfort (Juul et al, 2020;Diachenko et al, 2021). Killingworth and Gilbert showed that our human minds about half of our awake hours are occupied with mind wandering with consequences for our mental health (Killingsworth and Gilbert, 2010).…”