Effects of Length of Mindfulness Practice on Mindfulness, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress: a Randomized Controlled Exper
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Effects of Length of Mindfulness Practice on Mindfulness, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress: a Randomized Controlled Experiment Sarah Strohmaier 1
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Fergal W. Jones 1
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James E. Cane 1
Accepted: 21 September 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Objectives Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) vary in length of mindfulness practices included. It might be expected that longer practice leads to greater benefits in terms of increased mindfulness and decreased psychological distress. However, the evidence for such dose–response effects is mixed and generally does not support such strong causal conclusions given its correlational nature. Therefore, the current study sought to clarify which length of mindfulness practice led to greater benefits using an experimental design. Methods Participants (N = 71; 71.8% female), who were healthy adults with limited prior mindfulness practice experience, were randomized to either (i) four longer (20-min) mindfulness practices, (ii) four shorter (5-min) mindfulness practices, or (iii) an audiobook control group. All sessions were held in-person over a 2-week period, each group listened to the same total length of material each session, and participants refrained from formal mindfulness practice outside of sessions. Results Both longer and shorter practice significantly improved trait mindfulness, depression, anxiety, and stress compared with controls. Unexpectedly, shorter practice had a significantly greater effect on trait mindfulness (d = 2.17; p < .001) and stress (d = − 1.18; p < .01) than longer practice, with a trend in the same direction for depression and anxiety. Mediation analysis findings were mixed. Conclusions Even a relatively small amount of mindfulness practice can be beneficial and shorter practices may initially be more helpful for novice practitioners in MBPs with minimal teacher contact. Further research is needed to examine such dose–response effects when teacher involvement is greater and over the longer term. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov pre-registration identifier: NCT03797599 Keywords Mindfulness . Mindfulness-based programs . Mindfulness practice length . Depression . Anxiety . Stress
In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in mindfulnessbased programs (MBPs) and research around their use and effectiveness (Goldberg et al. 2018). Formal mindfulness practice forms a central feature of such programs and they are arguably predicated on an assumption that practicing mindfulness leads to an increase in trait and state mindfulness, which in turn improves well-being (Crane et al. 2017). Consistent with this, MBPs have been found to increase mindfulness and to Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01512-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Sarah Strohmaier [email protected] 1
Salomons Institute for Applied Psychology, Canterbury Christ Church University, Tunbridge W
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